From ajackson at iii.com  Thu Nov  1 10:22:02 2007
From: ajackson at iii.com (Anthony Jackson)
Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:22:02 -0800
Subject: [TML] Habitable Zones
In-Reply-To: <483f95360710312108q5d1da00ai15093acfa65535c4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <483f95360710312108q5d1da00ai15093acfa65535c4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4729FD2A.1080300@iii.com>

Tim Rattray wrote:
> Hi, does anyone know how to calculate the WIDTH of a habitable zone?
> There's lot's of help to get the middle, but nothing on the width.

To a large degree, that's because we don't know. Something like 
+25%/-20% is probably a credible guess.

From dave.shillito at gmail.com  Thu Nov  1 11:53:56 2007
From: dave.shillito at gmail.com (DAve Shillito)
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 17:53:56 +0000
Subject: [TML] Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods
In-Reply-To: <f7ac2f00710281220q3567e135n4f4442d851c044eb@mail.gmail.com>
References: <f7ac2f00710281220q3567e135n4f4442d851c044eb@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7c2152230711011053q7ca5bba6od6a95af050d74409@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/28/07, Bill Cameron <wmrcameron at gmail.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> Just another pile of nonsense from your's truly.
>
>
>
> *Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods*
>
<snip>

Doh! A day late on this one...

*Complications*

Part way through the journey the power dies, the
sarcophagus^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H container pops open and the dead stalk the
corridors...

WHAA HA HA HA Ahaaa!

DAve

From javaapp at gmail.com  Thu Nov  1 14:55:33 2007
From: javaapp at gmail.com (Doyle Tavener)
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 14:55:33 -0600
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions
Message-ID: <796a0ff00711011355qbbf8092wb42674c3615460f8@mail.gmail.com>

Hello all. This is my first post. Please excuse any inordinate breaking of
rules.

I originally sent this to the CT mailing list this morning, but I didn't get
a lot of love. So I am hoping for more feedback from the higher volume TML.
Normally I would wait a while for an answer, but it looks like I'll be
Refing this weekend. - Thanks

I am about to run my first CT game in over twenty years, and I had some
combat-related questions. I understand there is no `right' way
to address these points; what I am looking for is your experience in
dealing with these issues.

- Book 1 combat is simultaneous, I presume.

-Is using Tactics (the skill) to determine initiative a popular variant?

- If I did use Tactics, I assume the way to implement it would be to total
the tactics skill of all sides in a battle, and award first actions to
the side with the higher total. Or is that too weighted in favor of the
higher skill, making Tactics too important?

- Does anyone use Dexterity to determine who acts first?

- Is a better approach to use the system as it is, treating
`surprise' as the initiative system, when it applies?

- Do you always use the Mercenary expansion (with the extra rules, weapons
and armor) when you run Book 1 combat?

- I assume that Snapshot combat takes longer amounts of time than Book 1
combat. By what factor? (Half again as long, twice as long, etc.)

- When you run Book 1 or Snapshot combat, do you use the modifiers listed
for armor, range, stats, and posture? Or do most people just apply skill
and skip the rest of the modifiers? What effect does this have on combat
(i.e. how different is it because of this)?

- I assume that any sort of combat with military-grade weapons (ACR and
better) is significantly more deadly than Book 1 available weapons, by
as much as an order of magnitude. Am I correct, generally?

- Do law level restrictions generally make use of military grade weapons
available only in formal mercenary actions and `anything goes'
planets? Do you generally just say to your players, "Forget using
those weapons unless you have a mercenary ticket, or are going into a
situation where you don't care about any restrictions."

- Are there interstellar (Imperial) restrictions on possessing these
weapons (especially high energy weapons and battle dress) on board a
ship?

- Does a law level sufficient to own military grade weapons imply the
freedom to buy these weapons, assuming a proper tech level? Or do you
generally have to go to a low law-level world and then deal with an arms
merchant who imports weapons from off world, with a significant mark-up?

- Do you allow PCs to purchase military grade weapons and armor during
character generation? Or is this why the `gun' and
`blade' mustering out benefits are so important?

I think that's enough for now.

-- 
Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener

...it is not reasonable to assume that Aristotle knew the Number of the
Elect...
- Albertus Magnus

From ewan at quibell.org.uk  Thu Nov  1 15:18:04 2007
From: ewan at quibell.org.uk (Ewan Quibell)
Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:18:04 +0000
Subject: [TML] Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods
In-Reply-To: <7c2152230711011053q7ca5bba6od6a95af050d74409@mail.gmail.com>
References: <f7ac2f00710281220q3567e135n4f4442d851c044eb@mail.gmail.com>
	<7c2152230711011053q7ca5bba6od6a95af050d74409@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <472A428C.2080800@quibell.org.uk>

DAve Shillito wrote:

>> *Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods*
>>
> <snip>
> 
> Doh! A day late on this one...
> 
> *Complications*
> 
> Part way through the journey the power dies, the
> sarcophagus^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H container pops open and the dead stalk the
> corridors...
> 
> WHAA HA HA HA Ahaaa!
> 
> DAve

Quickly followed by the bubblegum, perky, drop dead gorgeous, all 
American Cheer leader, who comes out with witty and poinient one liners?

Or are you thinking more of the fast running, bite your head off don't 
stop until they starve, kill your mate in twenty seconds if he gets 
infected types? because you would need a different bubblegum, perky, 
drop dead gorgeous, all American Cheer leader to deal with them ;-)

Best Regards

Ewan
-- 
  ewan at quibell.org.uk

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
  At the going down of the sun and in the morning
  We will remember them.
			Laurence Binyon

  My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license


From ewan at quibell.org.uk  Thu Nov  1 15:31:22 2007
From: ewan at quibell.org.uk (Ewan Quibell)
Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:31:22 +0000
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions
In-Reply-To: <796a0ff00711011355qbbf8092wb42674c3615460f8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <796a0ff00711011355qbbf8092wb42674c3615460f8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <472A45AA.8030304@quibell.org.uk>

Doyle Tavener wrote:
> Hello all. This is my first post. Please excuse any inordinate breaking of
> rules.
> 
> I originally sent this to the CT mailing list this morning, but I didn't get
> a lot of love. So I am hoping for more feedback from the higher volume TML.
> Normally I would wait a while for an answer, but it looks like I'll be
> Refing this weekend. - Thanks

I just responded to your post on the CT list, and I'll reply here as well.

> I am about to run my first CT game in over twenty years, and I had some
> combat-related questions. I understand there is no `right' way
> to address these points; what I am looking for is your experience in
> dealing with these issues.
> 
> - Book 1 combat is simultaneous, I presume.

 From page 31 of LLB 1:

"Because all attacks (shots, blows, and swings) are made simultaneously,
all members of the attacking party may each make one attack as a
surprise if the party has surprise."

> -Is using Tactics (the skill) to determine initiative a popular variant?

I don't know. I use the MegaTraveller take on Tactics which is (page 66
of the MT Player's Manual):

"The Effects of Tactics Skill:
	Before a combat session begins, total the Tactics skill levels from
among the participants on each side. This total the is tactical points
Life Force pool. Tactical points form a special Roving DM on any combat
task roll. An individual must specify the number of tactical points he
intends to use as a DM before he proceeds with making the roll. Once a
tactical point is expended, it is used up for the combat round. Any
number of available tactical points may be used on a given roll. The
tactical point pool is received anew each combat round. Any unused
tactical points at the end of the combat round are lost and may not be
carried over to the next round.
	Tactical points are valuable because they can favourably influence the
outcome of vital tasks.
	Tactical points may never create a task DM that exceeds the total task
DM limit of plus or minus 8."

> - If I did use Tactics, I assume the way to implement it would be to total
> the tactics skill of all sides in a battle, and award first actions to
> the side with the higher total. Or is that too weighted in favor of the
> higher skill, making Tactics too important?

I didn't think there was initiative in Book 1 combat, everything happens
simultaneously. It has been a while since I played Book 1 combat, so
someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

> - Does anyone use Dexterity to determine who acts first?

See above

> - Is a better approach to use the system as it is, treating
> `surprise' as the initiative system, when it applies?

Up to you. Surprise gives you free attacks until you lose it, initiative
   is a different concept. Having initiative suggests that combat is not
simultaneously.

> - Do you always use the Mercenary expansion (with the extra rules, weapons
> and armor) when you run Book 1 combat?

As I said it has been a while, but generally, yes if there were
Characters rolled up using Book 4,5,6,7, otherwise no.

> - I assume that Snapshot combat takes longer amounts of time than Book 1
> combat. By what factor? (Half again as long, twice as long, etc.)

At least three times longer, possibility more. Book 1 combat is
abstracted and simultaneous, Snapshot is sequential depending on you
action point total and interrupts change the flow of the combat turn
depending on the situation.
	IMHO if players are combat orientated they will appreciate Snapshot 
over Book 1.

> - When you run Book 1 or Snapshot combat, do you use the modifiers listed
> for armor, range, stats, and posture? Or do most people just apply skill
> and skip the rest of the modifiers? What effect does this have on combat
> (i.e. how different is it because of this)?

I use the modifiers all the time, I would expect that not using them
would make combat even more deadly than it is.

> - I assume that any sort of combat with military-grade weapons (ACR and
> better) is significantly more deadly than Book 1 available weapons, by
> as much as an order of magnitude. Am I correct, generally?

Book 1 is pretty deadly anyway, and the Book 4 weapons only really make
a difference when you get up to the support weaponry. 3D or 4D damage is
the norm, and you will have no trouble finding weapons in Book 1 with
those type of damage characteristics. Defiantly not orders of magnitude.

> - Do law level restrictions generally make use of military grade weapons
> available only in formal mercenary actions and `anything goes'
> planets? Do you generally just say to your players, "Forget using
> those weapons unless you have a mercenary ticket, or are going into a
> situation where you don't care about any restrictions."

hat's up to the you. I live in the UK, where possession of a firearm is
the exception, not the norm, and gaining a license for anything other
than a shotgun is difficult, and if you are in possession of a handgun
they lock you up and throw away the key. So IMTU firearms carry
restrictions and licenses.
	If you live in the US where possession of a firearm is a right, and to
obtain one all you have to do is walk into the gun shop and producing a
driving license (state dependant I know but I'm sure you get my point),
and access to assault rifles and light support weaponry is not out of
the realms of possibility you may have a different take on the situation.

> - Are there interstellar (Imperial) restrictions on possessing these
> weapons (especially high energy weapons and battle dress) on board a
> ship?

If your ship is armed (to carry mail) with laser and missile turrets
that can engage other starships at light second ranges against hulls
that are capable of dealing with micro-meteors at orbital speeds do you
think the Imperium is going to worry about high energy weapons and
battle dress in space? Not IMTU.

> - Does a law level sufficient to own military grade weapons imply the
> freedom to buy these weapons, assuming a proper tech level? Or do you
> generally have to go to a low law-level world and then deal with an arms
> merchant who imports weapons from off world, with a significant mark-up?

IMTU if the law level says you can have them then someone will be able
to sell them to you.

> - Do you allow PCs to purchase military grade weapons and armor during
> character generation? Or is this why the `gun' and
> `blade' mustering out benefits are so important?

If they can afford it then I let them have it. It's possible to gain a
starship in character generation that is worth multiple millions of
credits, so why restrict the purchase of combat armour for Cr20,000?

> I think that's enough for now.

No worries, I hope my answers help some.

 > Doyle

Best Regards

Ewan
-- 
  ewan at quibell.org.uk

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
  At the going down of the sun and in the morning
  We will remember them.
			Laurence Binyon

  My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license


From johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu  Thu Nov  1 15:42:06 2007
From: johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu (Bruce Johnson)
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 14:42:06 -0700
Subject: [TML] Interesting books from the past
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.1.20071031102137.019c3ea8@gte.net>
References: <000501c81bc7$d3ff1290$6d354b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
	<7.0.1.0.1.20071031102137.019c3ea8@gte.net>
Message-ID: <D3E33B7B-CC51-4939-9BBF-F1725ECF2F3E@pharmacy.arizona.edu>


On Oct 31, 2007, at 8:33 AM, Robert Kevin Walsh wrote:

> its amazing what folks squirrel away and forget about, it or just
> gets lost in the shuffle


> Heres the online archive of those pictures
>
Wow!

Thank you for sharing this treasure.

-- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs



From johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu  Thu Nov  1 15:50:50 2007
From: johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu (Bruce Johnson)
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 14:50:50 -0700
Subject: [TML] Prototype
In-Reply-To: <001901c81b60$e913abd0$bb3b0370$@com.au>
References: <5aca9be50710252039w7cbcbebxecbd704d0b5f9d9b@mail.gmail.com>	<7146D9E3-4BC2-4F98-8876-0CA085DF34ED@ceecom.net>	<1c92296e0710260953s76384af6u70a9fd56c1007164@mail.gmail.com>	<1572F624-E5AF-4D9D-BF12-E3E04C193749@ceecom.net>	<1c92296e0710261653g1cb69ba8t3f66f5710c751a4d@mail.gmail.com>	<85919228-5F3C-48C5-A0B2-F50A66E31B4A@ceecom.net>	<001b01c818a0$fbbcaf60$f3360e20$@com.au>	<002301c81904$de7e1e70$9b7a5b50$@com.au>	<on18i3tjih6mk0nq5j2tn2anrf1lv5kajj@4ax.com>	<002e01c8191a$ca8a3b40$5f9eb1c0$@com.au>	<6.1.2.0.2.20071028014108.01b6fe90@pop.efn.org>	<A1A056D5-9300-4559-A89B-2569CB1AD834@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
	<001501c81b56$a5764c70$f062e550$@com.au>
	<001901c81b60$e913abd0$bb3b0370$@com.au>
Message-ID: <9FF00A67-5B16-41EF-80DD-2A7D257E9D5A@pharmacy.arizona.edu>


On Oct 30, 2007, at 6:53 PM, <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au>  
<Traveller at dhimaging.com.au> wrote:

> Is it being suggested that the Villani did not have an original  
> idea in
> thousands of years?  Don't confuse a complicated administrative  
> hierarchy
> with technological stagnation.
>

It's not merely suggested, it's Canon(R) :-)

> What about clothes?  A size 8 from one manufacturer is a Size 6 or  
> 7 from
> another.  Rings - I'm a Size Z+3 in Australia, but a 13 in the States.
> Shoes.  Surely they are the same.  No, wait.  They aren't.
>

Not in the Vilani world.


> Whatever you wish to use in your Traveller universe is between you  
> and your
> God.  That's fine.  But I like to apply a grain of salt of reality  
> to the
> game and make it a richer, more realistic setting.  Things change.   
> Period.
> That's not just a game, it's life.  That's Human Nature.

But many of these people aren't Human, as we know it. The Vilani  
spent a huge part of their prehistory as slaves for a godlike alien  
being, who then went to war with other GAB's which wiped most of them  
out.

They then spent a sizeable chunk of their early recorded history  
building up a civilization that was then squashed like bugs by GAB  
technology. They "originated" on a world where their food will *kill*  
them if they don't prepare it properly. ALL their food.

This will make Human Nature far less of the universal trait you think  
it is.

-- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs



From johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu  Thu Nov  1 15:51:55 2007
From: johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu (Bruce Johnson)
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 14:51:55 -0700
Subject: [TML] Prototype
In-Reply-To: <bcb.183a805a.34595f3e@aol.com>
References: <bcb.183a805a.34595f3e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <675423D1-39E6-423E-B843-CB2B357CD568@pharmacy.arizona.edu>


On Oct 30, 2007, at 9:31 PM, GDWGAMES at aol.com wrote:

>>> This is the 3rd Imperium, built on the bones of the Vilani empire.
>>> Starship/port fittings have been standardized since before they were
>>> drawing up the plans for the pyramid at Giza.
>
> Plans? For a pyramid? Don't you just start piling blocks and  
> gradually stop?
>
>
>   : )

Yep, and you get this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bent_Pyramid>


-- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs



From raikenclw at gmail.com  Thu Nov  1 18:04:49 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 20:04:49 -0400
Subject: [TML] Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods
In-Reply-To: <472A428C.2080800@quibell.org.uk>
References: <f7ac2f00710281220q3567e135n4f4442d851c044eb@mail.gmail.com>
	<7c2152230711011053q7ca5bba6od6a95af050d74409@mail.gmail.com>
	<472A428C.2080800@quibell.org.uk>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50711011704n1e705da1s1aa341306eba818a@mail.gmail.com>

On Nov 1, 2007 5:18 PM, Ewan Quibell <ewan at quibell.org.uk> wrote:
> Quickly followed by the bubblegum, perky, drop dead gorgeous, all
> American Cheer leader, who comes out with witty and poinient one liners?
>
> Or are you thinking more of the fast running, bite your head off don't
> stop until they starve, kill your mate in twenty seconds if he gets
> infected types? because you would need a different bubblegum, perky,
> drop dead gorgeous, all American Cheer leader to deal with them ;-)

In this same vein . . . (couldn't resist)

Anyone else see "30 Days of Night" yet?  Just about the lamest vampire
movie ever.

SPOILER SPACE

<

<

<

<

<

It, too, has the Instant Vampire ("Just add blood and presto!") bit.
If vampirism were this easy to catch and vampires really existed,
there wouldn't be any humans left in the world.

Of course, it doesn't help that - courtesy of reading a lot of SF - I
know the sun doesn't work like it's supposed to in this movie.  The
character's spend a month waiting for the sun to come back and save
them, right?  WHY?  When it does come back, it's only going to peek
over the horizon for a FEW MINUTES.  All the vampires have to do is
DUCK.

Plus, the set up was flat impossible.  Follow: ~200 people leave town
(to avoid going crazy from the VERY long night, apparently).  ~150 of
their relatives and closest friends stay behind.  The vampires's
Renfield takes out the long-distance comms.  So far, so good.

But . . .  this isn't the Wild West or a lonely colony planet.  How
long would it really be before someone - state cops, National Gaurd,
Air Force, SOMEONE - flew in to see why *nobody* could get through to
*anyone* in the entire town?  How likely is it that NOBODY in this
routinely-totally-isolated town had a ham radio transmitter?

Oh yeah.  And so it's three weeks in and the vampires are getting a
tad peckish.  So they send a crying young girl down the street as bait
for surviving hideouts.  Our Heros are peering out of hiding,
agonizing over her fate but not about to go out there, since they can
see the vampires hovering about on the neighboring rooftops.

Say WHAT?  WHERE are they getting enough light to see the vampires?  I
really, really doubt that even the brightest moonlight would let
someone pick out a black-clothed vampire against an (at best) starlit
night sky.  So why was the scene brightly lit?  Answer: So the
audience could easily follow what was happening.

And the hideouts were constantly seen peeking out through hole peeled
in the craftpaper with which they had covered their single window . .
. WITHOUT first turning down/blowing out their Coleman lantern!  They
might as well have been shouting: "Hey!  Fresh blood here!  Come and
get it!"  Not to mention that craft paper wouldn't block all the
light, anyway . . .

Didn't the moronic writers of this movie ever see or even just hear of
"Pitch Black?"  Here they have the perfect opportunity to do
not-really-a-remake on good, ole 21st-century Earth and they give us
this garbage.  <shrug>  Maybe they were worried about plagarism
charges.

Pathetic.


-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From grantk70 at yahoo.com  Thu Nov  1 20:12:27 2007
From: grantk70 at yahoo.com (Keith Grant)
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 19:12:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions
In-Reply-To: <796a0ff00711011355qbbf8092wb42674c3615460f8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8250.99873.qm@web56806.mail.re3.yahoo.com>

Warning - long, long post ahead.


<<snip>>

> - Book 1 combat is simultaneous, I presume.

Thats correct.

> 
> -Is using Tactics (the skill) to determine
> initiative a popular variant?
> 
> - If I did use Tactics, I assume the way to
> implement it would be to total
> the tactics skill of all sides in a battle, and
> award first actions to
> the side with the higher total. Or is that too
> weighted in favor of the
> higher skill, making Tactics too important?

I've never used Tactics for determining initiative,
since I stick to treating combat as simultaneous.  It
does affect surprise, as well as having an effect on
the morale of NPC hirelings.

I also use the skill to dole out information.  Things
like guessing at how fast the enemy will be able to
react to a particular maneuver, or judging which units
might be about to break.
 
> - Does anyone use Dexterity to determine who acts
> first?

I've never heard of anyone doing that before.  Given
that dexterity can already have a substantial effect
on how good a shot you are, I think it plays a
significant enough role in combat already.  If you use
it for initiative too, anyone unlucky enough to have a
3 dex is going to be looking for a new character in
short order.

> - Is a better approach to use the system as it is,
> treating
> `surprise' as the initiative system, when it
> applies?

I've never had any problems with using the combat
system un-modded.
 
> - Do you always use the Mercenary expansion (with
> the extra rules, weapons
> and armor) when you run Book 1 combat?

Usually, yes.  Most of the players I deal with have a
hard time with believing that the automatic rifle will
still be the de-facto standard weapon for infantrymen
5000 years from now.  Trot out the gauss rifle, and
the suspension of disbelief goes a lot farther.

> - When you run Book 1 or Snapshot combat, do you use
> the modifiers listed
> for armor, range, stats, and posture? Or do most
> people just apply skill
> and skip the rest of the modifiers? What effect does
> this have on combat
> (i.e. how different is it because of this)?

I use all the modifiers listed, and will sometimes add
one more on to represent unusual circumstances like
breathing Pysadian atmosphere or having an Aslan
trying to rip your arms off while you're shooting.
 
The armor modifiers are particularly important -
without that one, an imperial marine in full
battledress is as easy to kill as a ragged peasant. 
Not even remotely believable.

> - I assume that any sort of combat with
> military-grade weapons (ACR and
> better) is significantly more deadly than Book 1
> available weapons, by
> as much as an order of magnitude. Am I correct,
> generally?

The ACR isn't much more deadly than an autorifle.  The
one extra die of damage usually isn't enough to kill
you, and the autorifle will often knock you out when
it hits anyways.

The gauss rifle is significantly more deadly than any
of the book one weapons, largely because of the extra
shots it gets when firing ten round bursts.  From
there up, it just gets deadlier and deadlier.

> - Do law level restrictions generally make use of
> military grade weapons
> available only in formal mercenary actions and
> `anything goes'
> planets? Do you generally just say to your players,
> "Forget using
> those weapons unless you have a mercenary ticket, or
> are going into a
> situation where you don't care about any
> restrictions."
 
There are relatively few planets where the local law
level is low enough to carry around military grade
weaponry.  Having a mercenary ticket is one way to get
around that issue, but there are other options too. 
Lets not forget that the planetary law level doesn't
apply inside the starport extrality line.  Balkanized
worlds will have different law levels in each country
- maybe one of them is more permissive than its
neighbors.

Oh, and there's also ship-to-ship combat.  For
hijackers, privateers, pirates, or any merchant crew
unfortunate enough to fall victim to any of the above,
those military grade weapons will come in handy as all
hell.

> - Are there interstellar (Imperial) restrictions on
> possessing these
> weapons (especially high energy weapons and battle
> dress) on board a
> ship?

In canon, none that I know of.  IMTU, fusion and
plasma weaponry, as well as battledress require
expensive permits.  The permits are issued ONLY to
mercenary units of platoon size or larger with a
proven track record of adhering to the Rules of War as
well as fiscal stability (you don't want them going
bankrupt and liquidating those FGMP-15s on the black
market).

Sometimes, you can get them through less than legal
channels, but if the imperial marines catch you
without your permits in order, the hammer comes down
hard.
 
> - Does a law level sufficient to own military grade
> weapons imply the
> freedom to buy these weapons, assuming a proper tech
> level? Or do you
> generally have to go to a low law-level world and
> then deal with an arms
> merchant who imports weapons from off world, with a
> significant mark-up?
 
Worlds with a low law level and high tech are few and
far between.  As an example, purchasing a gauss rifle
would require a tech level of C and a law level of at
most 2, plus a pop code of at least 4 in order to
support a gun shop.  In the Spinward Marches, only six
worlds meet those criteria, and one of them is red
zoned (Lewis/Aramis).

My usual solution is to allow the players to buy the
cool toys at a markup on a world with a low enough law
level and a high enough population to support an
import shop.  Alternately, on some high-tech, high-pop
worlds with a big starport, there may be a shop inside
the extrality line where firearms are less strictly
controlled.


> - Do you allow PCs to purchase military grade
> weapons and armor during
> character generation? Or is this why the `gun' and
> `blade' mustering out benefits are so important?

I allow them to purchase only that equipment that
would be available on the world at which they mustered
out.  Gun/blade benefits are unrestricted by local law
level or ready cash (though I still don't let them
choose high energy weapons, since they don't have
permits for them)


Hope all this helps,
Keith Grant

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

From snake.eyes at att.net  Thu Nov  1 20:27:18 2007
From: snake.eyes at att.net (Snake Eyes)
Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:27:18 -0700
Subject: [TML] Prototype
In-Reply-To: <bcb.183a805a.34595f3e@aol.com>
References: <bcb.183a805a.34595f3e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <20071102022530.7455E447FF@mail.cordite.com>

At 10/30/2007 - 07:52 PM, LKW wrote:

> >> This is the 3rd Imperium, built on the bones of the Vilani empire.
> > >Starship/port fittings have been standardized since before they were
> > >drawing up the plans for the pyramid at Giza.
>
>Plans? For a pyramid? Don't you just start piling blocks and gradually stop?
>
>
>   : )
>
>LKW


But you'll never get executive support, budgetary approval and 
adequate resources attached to your project without an approved plan.

:)

~ Snake Eyes


From Leon.Wu at newswire.ca  Fri Nov  2 08:38:07 2007
From: Leon.Wu at newswire.ca (Leon Wu)
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 10:38:07 -0400
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions
In-Reply-To: <8250.99873.qm@web56806.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
References: <796a0ff00711011355qbbf8092wb42674c3615460f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<8250.99873.qm@web56806.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <270030C754582B458D8E7BF9EBDE7A4F05217EF8@YTO1VEXC001.ibmcahostedmail.net>



> -----Original Message-----
> From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com [mailto:tml-
> bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of Keith Grant
> Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 10:12 PM
> To: tml at travellercentral.com
> Subject: Re: [TML] First Session CT Questions
> 
> <<snip>>
> I've never used Tactics for determining initiative,
> since I stick to treating combat as simultaneous.  It
> does affect surprise, as well as having an effect on
> the morale of NPC hirelings.
> 
> I also use the skill to dole out information.  Things
> like guessing at how fast the enemy will be able to
> react to a particular maneuver, or judging which units
> might be about to break.

For another sci-fi RPG I ran years ago I used the tactics skill in a
similar vein. When the players were preparing to attack an enemy base, I
would ask them their overall game plan then total their tactics skill
versus their opponents in an opposed roll. If the players won they'd
gain extra insight or an advantage in the attack, if they lost I plop an
extra impediment in the middle of their game plan reflecting better
planning by the bad guys.

e.g. Players are planning on infiltrating an enemy base to rescue the
patron. It's in the wilderness with wire fencing, barbed wire and
watchtowers. PC's plan on using a gulley to get close to the base and in
the blind spot of one of the towers and cut through the wire. If they
win their tactics roll they find a gap in the fencing (giant mutant
rabbit burrow) or find one of the towers is unmanned. If they lose the
roll, then they find the baddies have put a sentry at the gully exit.
Not the end of the world but they'll have to do some extra work to get
around him.

Leon

From shadow at shadowgard.com  Fri Nov  2 11:34:27 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:34:27 -0700
Subject: [TML] Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods
In-Reply-To: <3cf5ea650710311405m748c5816g2289046d26b91ee2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>,
	<472878A2.32444.3059DFC@shadow.shadowgard.com>,
	<3cf5ea650710311405m748c5816g2289046d26b91ee2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <472AFD33.22028.88CB88F@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 31 Oct 2007 at 16:05, Steve Burchett wrote:

> On 10/31/07, shadow at shadowgard.com <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 31 Oct 2007 at 6:19, Steve Burchett wrote:
> > Have you read
> > > I Will Fear No Evil? Strange, but good. And Glory Road! The only
> > "fantasy" I
> > > think he wrote. Excellent!
> >
> > Actually, he wrote several other fantasies. You have to dig them out
> > of the story collections though.
> 
> 
> I was referring to novels. Did he write other fantasy novels? (hope, hope)

Not that I recall. But there are a couple of novellas in there.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From carlino at cox.net  Fri Nov  2 17:09:51 2007
From: carlino at cox.net (Terry Carlino)
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:09:51 -0400
Subject: [TML] In the Navy
In-Reply-To: <549256.57755.qm@web42105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <549256.57755.qm@web42105.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <472BAE3F.60100@cox.net>

juliane murphy wrote:
>    Hi gang,
>      Not overly familiar with the way the TU Imperial Navy operates, I have, not *too* surprisingly, decided to cadge bits from the RW Navy.
>      Problem is, not having been in the RW Navy, I'm basically just as lost as if I were trying to pin down details of the IN.
>      Anyhow, I'm wondering just how high the racks are stacked aboard Navy vessels. I've seen them 2-high in "Mister Roberts", but could've sworn I've seen them 3-high in something else. Also, while watching some WW2 documentary, I saw a shot of bunks stacked a scary 5 or 6-high (of course this was to accommodate troops for the invasion of Fortress Europe).  
>      Confused.
>     -Ken-
>   
As many have already talked about the U.S. Navy (of which I was a 
member) I thought I'd say a few words about other Navies.

I'll start by stating that in the 1980's I was station aboard an Adam 
Class Destroyer, a ship built in the 1960's. It had a crew of about 320. 
Accomodations were as described by other. At this time I had the 
pleasure to serve in a task group with the  FGS Rommel, which was a 
German Navy variant of the Adams. Petty officers on the Rommel lived in 
six person staterooms. I've no doubt that overall crew spaces were the 
same size, but it is amazing how much more livable a few walls can make 
things. In other words you can have 36 people in a berthing space or 
divide that berthing space into 6 rooms, with doors, and give people 
more privacy.

They also had more storage space. In many ways there could be plenty 
more storage space in most berthing compartments. Most U.S. Navy 
Berthing compartments have plenty of nooks and crannys  which could be 
filled with storage, but isn't because regulations set a specific amount 
of storage for each male sailor. Of course female sailors are allowed 
more storage.

I won't even go into the petty officer club which was located aboard, 
which was "wet" while in  port.

As to canon, most designs in Traveller that actually show crew 
accommodations are merchant ships. U.S. merchants (those that exist) 
have luxurious accommodations for merchant seamen, compared to naval 
enlisted sailors. Many get private rooms. Even junior seamen only share 
with one other person.

Of course looking at present space accommodation, I do not believe that 
ISS even has a place dedicated for sleeping. Privacy is completely 
unavailable.

Looking at it another way, previously, in earlier eras, bunk rooms were 
the common sleeping arrangements many places where single men, 
especially, worked; lumber camps, ranches, etc. On ships of the sailing 
age seamen slept in hammocks strung in working spaces. Warrants had 
micro-small cabins and officers staterooms.

So in a sociological sense what kind of accommodations a ship has says a 
lot about the society  from which it's members come. Germany spent more 
on berthing because it had a small navy, less cost to provide better 
accommodations. Petty officers were considered to have some military 
status, as opposed to the modern U.S. Navy where almost every member is 
a petty officer, with little status until reaching the chief petty 
officer grade.

I've often said that much can be shown about a whole society just by 
seeing what kind of bathroom accommodations a building or ship has. If 
every apartment has a bathroom that says something. If a hotel has one 
bathroom per floor where most hotels have only outhouses that says 
something. If it has the same where most hotels have bathrooms for every 
room that says something different.

Looking at canon ships what do we see? Most spacers seem to have 
semi-private rooms, 2 to a cabin, with detached bathrooms which are 
shared among several staterooms. GT ship's, especially those which 
embark Marines seem to allow many more 16 person bunkrooms, which seem 
to follow modern U.S. Navy practice. Of course all we really have is a 
number of small military craft, perhaps as few as half a dozen. Most 
Traveller ships are either merchants or scout craft.

-- 
TerryC
All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost


From tomnaro at yahoo.com  Fri Nov  2 19:23:30 2007
From: tomnaro at yahoo.com (Tom Naro)
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 18:23:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions
Message-ID: <165110.886.qm@web53711.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener wrote:
 
<snip - some Excellent questions>
 
>- Does a law level sufficient to own military grade weapons imply the
>freedom to buy these weapons, assuming a proper tech level? Or do you
>generally have to go to a low law-level world and then deal with an arms
>merchant who imports weapons from off world, with a significant mark-up?

 
If the law level allows weapons to be sold, the player has a chance to locate a seller.  The player might need to do a bit of searching, but it should not be too hard.  However, it might be difficult to locate a dealer in true "military grade" items such as heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, VRF Gauss guns, and explosives.  With the use of streetwise skills, players might be able to locate "illegal" weapons too.  The black-market should have weapons one or two levels "outside the law".  This kind of search should only be allowed once the game has started.
 
All kinds of exceptions are possible.  The law/tech levels do not necessarily dictate that any weapons are produced locally.  It is possible that ALL weapons sold at a particular location are produced off-world (and marked up as you said.)  It might even be possible that, although legal, no one is actually selling weapons.  I can think of a few scenarios (none of these would be common):
 
1. Interstellar Arms dumped a stockpile (millions) of poorly designed lasers on this world and EVERYONE has at least one.  The local weapons trade simply died due to lack of interest in the locally produced weapons.  The only weapons still sold here are surplus/used IA lasers of substandard design. (10% chance of failure on each shot - weapon is not repairable. Of course you don't actually tell the players about the faults.)
2. The world natives are strict pacifist/anarchist and they don't believe in weapons or making laws against them.
3. There is a local war and all the weapons were bought (or confiscated) by the local armies.
4. The people are too busy trying to survive on a semi-hostile world to worry about guns.  The real market here is for air purification and other life-support equipment.
 
IMTU: I have added a second law level (and tech level) that applies to the local government.  This lets me represent places where the police vastly "outgun" the population.
  
>- Do you allow PCs to purchase military grade weapons and armor during
>character generation? Or is this why the `gun' and
>`blade' mustering out benefits are so important?

This is a tricky question, and the answer definitely sets the tone for the rest of your game.  If you plan a game with a strong military flavor, then let the characters purchase heavy weapons and armor during character generation.  That would let the group jump right into the action.  (Of course, you would sacrifice the "adventure" of the characters trying to find and purchase all the military gear.)
 
The mustering out process represents accumulated savings as well as service rewards.  The "gun" reward should have more that just a monetary or utilitarian value.  It might be the gun that saved the characters life while he was in service.  It might be the service pistol that he has carried for 12 years.  The weapon might have been given to him by a noble or commanding officer for some notable accomplishment.  In my game, players are STRONGLY discouraged from selling these items.
 
In my games, characters start out with basic clothing, shoes, and personal grooming gear (Toothbrush, comb/brush, razor, breath mints, etc.)  The characters that muster out of a military service get a "duty" uniform and a "dress" uniform; neither of which count as any kind of armor (Sorry Marines - your uniforms are NOT made of ballistic cloth.  Marines have to buy armor just like everyone else.)  All other gear must be purchased using the mustering out funds.  All purchases are at book prices, of course.
 
Depending on the starting location, I might give them some free items - if I start them on a world with a tainted atmo, I give them free filter masks.  If the planet is ice-bound, I give them cold-weather gear.  I compensate for the things that the players cannot know before the game starts.
 
If the players start with a ship, I put ordinary gear in the ships locker.  I only provide standard Vacc Suits for the ship.  If players want Tailored Suits or Skinsuits they must spend their own money.
 
I allow players to pool money and purchase one "big ticket item" (BT) if they want.  The BT is usually some kind of vehicle or a ship upgrade of some kind.  Generally, pooled money must be spent on something that will benefit the entire group.  All players must agree on pooled purchases (which is a fairly good "reasonableness" constraint).  Technically they all "Invest in the company" - and the money goes into a common fund.  The BT belongs to the "company" - not an individual character.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

From sburchett at gmail.com  Fri Nov  2 19:55:01 2007
From: sburchett at gmail.com (Steve Burchett)
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 20:55:01 -0500
Subject: [TML] Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods
In-Reply-To: <472AFD33.22028.88CB88F@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<472878A2.32444.3059DFC@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<3cf5ea650710311405m748c5816g2289046d26b91ee2@mail.gmail.com>
	<472AFD33.22028.88CB88F@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <3cf5ea650711021855x5ccfdfa7t2207bdfaf9968c9@mail.gmail.com>

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is also one of my favorites. It helped me form
many of my basic beliefs that I hold to unto today. *sigh* So sad that he is
gone. *bows head mournfully*

Steve

On 11/2/07, shadow at shadowgard.com <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
>
> On 31 Oct 2007 at 16:05, Steve Burchett wrote:
>
> > On 10/31/07, shadow at shadowgard.com <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On 31 Oct 2007 at 6:19, Steve Burchett wrote:
> > > Have you read
> > > > I Will Fear No Evil? Strange, but good. And Glory Road! The only
> > > "fantasy" I
> > > > think he wrote. Excellent!
> > >
> > > Actually, he wrote several other fantasies. You have to dig them out
> > > of the story collections though.
> >
> >
> > I was referring to novels. Did he write other fantasy novels? (hope,
> hope)
>
> Not that I recall. But there are a couple of novellas in there.
>
> --
> Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
> shadow at shadowgard dot com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TML mailing list
> TML at travellercentral.com
> http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml
>

From Traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Fri Nov  2 23:47:48 2007
From: Traveller at dhimaging.com.au (Traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:47:48 +1100
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <3cf5ea650711021855x5ccfdfa7t2207bdfaf9968c9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>	<472878A2.32444.3059DFC@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<3cf5ea650710311405m748c5816g2289046d26b91ee2@mail.gmail.com>	<472AFD33.22028.88CB88F@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<3cf5ea650711021855x5ccfdfa7t2207bdfaf9968c9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <002801c81ddd$131bb520$39531f60$@com.au>

It's easy to forget just how dangerous near earth orbit is...

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=169924


Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk

NASA has planned for the worst in a risky, high-stakes spacewalk on Saturday
that must succeed for construction to continue aboard the International
Space Station, officials said on Friday.

But managers are hoping three days of around-the-clock engineering
assessments, private talks with the orbiting shuttle and space station crews
and the detailed plans to send a spacewalker to the far outer reaches of the
station will boil down to a simple, 30-minute wiring job to buttress broken
hinges on a damaged solar wing panel.

It's a snag clear. It's not rocket science," lead spacewalk planner Dina
Contella said.

Though he is one of NASA's most experienced spacewalkers, astronaut Scott
Parazynski has not practiced the steps he must take to clear suspected
jammed wiring and other hardware glitches that caused the wing to rip in two
places while it was being extended on Tuesday.

NASA had not planned for that possibility, nor a second problem, which has
been temporarily postponed, with the solar power system on the other side of
the station's frame. That wing is now locked in place to avoid using its
contaminated rotary joint.

The ripped wing is about 75 per cent unfurled and needs to be extended to
its full 34-metre-long span for structural rigidity. Without that, NASA said
it will not risk adding more modules to the outpost. Europe's Columbus
laboratory, already running five years behind schedule, is next in line for
launch, followed by Japan's three-part Kibo complex next year.

"At this point we have damage at both ends of the truss," said space station
flight director Derek Hassmann. "We need to address one of these problems
before we can proceed."

Choreographing a spacewalk that will put an astronaut farther from his
spaceship than ever before was a daunting task that has preoccupied the
Johnson Space Center flight control team since Tuesday.

To reach the tattered wing, Parazynski will strap himself to the end of an
extension boom, borrowed from the space shuttle, that will be held by the
space station's 15-metre-long robot arm, providing about 23 metres of reach.
Just the ride to the work site will take 45 minutes, Contella said.

Once in position, Parazynski will be dependent on his spacewalking partner,
Douglas Wheelock, to warn him of danger, watch his tools and tethers and
help robot arm operators in the space station position him correctly.

NASA likes to keep its spacewalkers closer to the airlock in case they have
to return quickly due to a spacesuit problem or other emergency. Fixing the
station's broken wing, however, will cut into that margin of safety.

Parazynski also must be careful to avoid touching anything that could
trigger an electrical shock. His tools and even the metal rings on his
spacesuit have been wrapped in insulating tape but "we're treating the
situation as if there are hot wires that he could possibly contact,"
Hassmann said.

If all goes well, Parazynski will install six home-made straps that fit like
cuff links through holes in the solar power wing's frame.

Hassmann said his team's advice to the crew: "Go slow, be careful and use
all your resources.

NASA is sketching out a backup plan to extend Discovery's stay at the
station in case a second repair spacewalk is needed. The shuttle arrived at
the station eight days ago and is slated to depart on Monday.

"I have hopes it's going to be a quick and easy fix," Hassmann said.

The shuttle is due back at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday.


From jurrubin at gmail.com  Sat Nov  3 16:22:56 2007
From: jurrubin at gmail.com (David Smart)
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 17:22:56 -0500
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <002801c81ddd$131bb520$39531f60$@com.au>
References: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<472878A2.32444.3059DFC@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<3cf5ea650710311405m748c5816g2289046d26b91ee2@mail.gmail.com>
	<472AFD33.22028.88CB88F@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<3cf5ea650711021855x5ccfdfa7t2207bdfaf9968c9@mail.gmail.com>
	<002801c81ddd$131bb520$39531f60$@com.au>
Message-ID: <1c92296e0711031522u566ef60ak58f743733cef211c@mail.gmail.com>

One of the early shuttle astronauts once said described being in space as
"anything you don't know can kill you. Anything you forget can kill you.
Anything you don't bring with you can kill you." Or something to that
effect. Wish I could find the quote on the web.

David

On 11/3/07, Traveller at dhimaging.com.au <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au> wrote:
>
> It's easy to forget just how dangerous near earth orbit is...
>

From Traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Sat Nov  3 17:07:35 2007
From: Traveller at dhimaging.com.au (Traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 10:07:35 +1100
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <1c92296e0711031522u566ef60ak58f743733cef211c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>	<472878A2.32444.3059DFC@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<3cf5ea650710311405m748c5816g2289046d26b91ee2@mail.gmail.com>	<472AFD33.22028.88CB88F@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<3cf5ea650711021855x5ccfdfa7t2207bdfaf9968c9@mail.gmail.com>	<002801c81ddd$131bb520$39531f60$@com.au>
	<1c92296e0711031522u566ef60ak58f743733cef211c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <001901c81e6e$5374d2a0$fa5e77e0$@com.au>

I think it's incredible that two astronauts - working side by side - can
have a temperature difference of hundreds of degrees.  If one is in the
shade of the shuttle and the isn't, the temperature extremes are incredible.
What quality control measures are taken for tools and instruments that are
exposed to such wildly different and quickly-changing temperatures?

-Joel

-----Original Message-----
From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
[mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of David Smart
Sent: Sunday, 4 November 2007 9:23 AM
To: The Traveller Mailing List
Subject: Re: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk

One of the early shuttle astronauts once said described being in space as
"anything you don't know can kill you. Anything you forget can kill you.
Anything you don't bring with you can kill you." Or something to that
effect. Wish I could find the quote on the web.

David

On 11/3/07, Traveller at dhimaging.com.au <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au> wrote:
>
> It's easy to forget just how dangerous near earth orbit is...
>
_______________________________________________
TML mailing list
TML at travellercentral.com
http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml


From james.catchpole at virgin.net  Sat Nov  3 17:33:43 2007
From: james.catchpole at virgin.net (Jim)
Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:33:43 +0000
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <1c92296e0711031522u566ef60ak58f743733cef211c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>	<472878A2.32444.3059DFC@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<3cf5ea650710311405m748c5816g2289046d26b91ee2@mail.gmail.com>	<472AFD33.22028.88CB88F@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<3cf5ea650711021855x5ccfdfa7t2207bdfaf9968c9@mail.gmail.com>	<002801c81ddd$131bb520$39531f60$@com.au>
	<1c92296e0711031522u566ef60ak58f743733cef211c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <472D0557.6020505@virgin.net>

Sounds like a quote from Nathan Spring in 'Star Cops', something like :-

"You leave Earth and anything you forget to bring with you will kill 
you; anything you do bring with you which doesn't work properly will 
kill you; and if you're in any doubt, just assume everything will kill you."


David Smart wrote:
> One of the early shuttle astronauts once said described being in space as
> "anything you don't know can kill you. Anything you forget can kill you.
> Anything you don't bring with you can kill you." Or something to that
> effect. Wish I could find the quote on the web.
>
> David
>
> On 11/3/07, Traveller at dhimaging.com.au <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au> wrote:
>   
>> It's easy to forget just how dangerous near earth orbit is...
>>
>>     
> _______________________________________________
> TML mailing list
> TML at travellercentral.com
> http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml
>
>   


From shadow at shadowgard.com  Sat Nov  3 19:01:42 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:01:42 -0700
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <001901c81e6e$5374d2a0$fa5e77e0$@com.au>
References: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>,
	<1c92296e0711031522u566ef60ak58f743733cef211c@mail.gmail.com>,
	<001901c81e6e$5374d2a0$fa5e77e0$@com.au>
Message-ID: <472CB786.31891.F534443@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 4 Nov 2007 at 10:07, Traveller at dhimaging.com.au wrote:

> I think it's incredible that two astronauts - working side by side - can
> have a temperature difference of hundreds of degrees.  If one is in the
> shade of the shuttle and the isn't, the temperature extremes are incredible.
> What quality control measures are taken for tools and instruments that are
> exposed to such wildly different and quickly-changing temperatures?

Keep in mind that the tools are in a vacuum. So they aren't exposed 
to those temperatures at all.

So they only gain heat by absorbing sunlight falling on them or by 
conduction from objects they are in contact with.

They lose heat by radiating it away or conducting it to objects they 
come in contact with.

Radiation gains/loses are *slow* unles the object is very dark 
colored. And not that well polished.

Conduction is faster, but it also depends on how much is in contact 
and how good the contact is. And thermal conductivity comes into play 
as well.

Those huge temp differences you are always hearing about are 
*equilibrium* temperatures. And it takes a significant amount of time 
to reach equilibrium.


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From tim at little-possums.net  Sat Nov  3 22:02:20 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 15:02:20 +1100
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <472CB786.31891.F534443@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <001901c81e6e$5374d2a0$fa5e77e0$@com.au>
	<472CB786.31891.F534443@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <20071104040220.GV27107@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 06:01:42PM -0700, shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:
> Radiation gains/loses are *slow* unles the object is very dark
> colored. And not that well polished.

Not terribly slow.  Almost all painted surfaces, even those that are
visually brilliant white, have high infrared emissivity - on the order
of 90%.  That means a heat loss on the order of about 500 W/m^2 for
near "room" temperature.  If the visual reflectance is high, they can
cool to dangerously low temperatures (e.g. -100 C) even in direct
sunlight.

Conversely, most metals and some other substances have moderately high
emissivity in the visible spectrum, but lower in IR.  For example,
mirror-polished stainless steel has a visible absorption of about
40-50%, but infrared emissivity about 5-8%.  In direct sunlight it
would have a net heat gain of about 500 W/m^2 up until the temperature
went to about 250 C.


> Those huge temp differences you are always hearing about are
> *equilibrium* temperatures. And it takes a significant amount of
> time to reach equilibrium.

Yes, on the order of many hours to even days for objects of
significant thickness such as a person.  The thinner or less dense an
object is, the faster it will change temperature.  A sheet of 2mm
stainless steel in sunlight, for example, could approach its
equilibrium 250 C within about an hour.

More complex objects would have internal heat flows making them more
difficult to model, but the same general principles would apply.  For
one common type - an object with thin casing attached at only a few
points to other components inside - the casing may approach a
transitional equilibrium temperature much sooner than the interior.


- Tim

From allenshock1 at yahoo.com  Sat Nov  3 22:30:02 2007
From: allenshock1 at yahoo.com (Allen Shock)
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 21:30:02 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TML] U-Con
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <28375.29343.qm@web30003.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

">Anyone else going to UCon next week? I know Loren will be there. :)

I need volunteers to come to my seminars, applaud after I speak, and
 buy me lunch. In return I'll hang out, sign autographs, and chat about
 Traveller.

LKW"
   
  Oh how I wish I could :( I haven't been to U-Con in ten years and I have a new set of the LBB's (well not new...12th printing, 1979 vintage) that I would love to get signed...
   
  Allen



 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

From glenn.goffin at yahoo.com  Sat Nov  3 23:22:19 2007
From: glenn.goffin at yahoo.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 22:22:19 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TML] UCon, Ann Arbor MI
Message-ID: <716591.33620.qm@web45508.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

>From: GDWGAMES at aol.com

>I need volunteers to come to my seminars, applaud after I
>speak, and buy me lunch. In return I'll hang out, sign
>autographs, and chat about Traveller.

Let us know when you're giving a seminar in the San
Francisco area!

--Glenn

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From aurictech at cox.net  Sat Nov  3 23:39:50 2007
From: aurictech at cox.net (John Groth)
Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:39:50 -0700
Subject: [TML] TusCon 34?
Message-ID: <472D5B26.1030803@cox.net>

Anyone (other than me) planning to attend TusCon 34 in Tucson, AZ, 09-11 
November 2007?

http://home.earthlink.net/~basfa/

From ewan at quibell.org.uk  Sun Nov  4 04:31:50 2007
From: ewan at quibell.org.uk (Ewan Quibell)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 11:31:50 +0000
Subject: [TML] LKW License Sunset
Message-ID: <472DADA6.1090902@quibell.org.uk>

Hi Loren,

Does your Traveller license sunset?

Perhaps you are a special case though ... or another exception?

Best Regards

Ewan
-- 
  ewan at quibell.org.uk

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
  At the going down of the sun and in the morning
  We will remember them.
			Laurence Binyon

  My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license


From lesbates_traveller at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 07:26:05 2007
From: lesbates_traveller at yahoo.com (Leslie Bates)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 06:26:05 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [TML] Um... Okay...
Message-ID: <250197.1885.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Spot the player character.

http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=8028029&postcount=36733


__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

From garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net  Sun Nov  4 09:09:36 2007
From: garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net (Garry Ward)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 11:09:36 -0500
Subject: [TML] Um... Okay...
References: <250197.1885.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <002801c81efd$61579cb0$d7364b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Leslie Bates" <lesbates_traveller at yahoo.com>
To: <TML at travellercentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 9:26 AM
Subject: [TML] Um... Okay...


> Spot the player character.
> 
> http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=8028029&postcount=36733
> 
Better question is how did they get away justifying that to the GM?

Garry
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
> http://mail.yahoo.com 
> _______________________________________________
> TML mailing list
> TML at travellercentral.com
> http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml
>


From erisred at bellsouth.net  Sun Nov  4 10:27:09 2007
From: erisred at bellsouth.net (Eris Reddoch)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 11:27:09 -0600
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions
In-Reply-To: <8250.99873.qm@web56806.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
References: <8250.99873.qm@web56806.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <472E00ED.9060101@bellsouth.net>

Keith Grant wrote:

<big snip>

> Worlds with a low law level and high tech are few and far 
> between.  As an example, purchasing a gauss rifle would 
> require a tech level of C and a law level of at most 2, 
> plus a pop code of at least 4 in order to support a gun 
> shop.  In the Spinward Marches, only six worlds meet those 
> criteria, and one of them is red zoned (Lewis/Aramis).

"...purchasing a gauss rifle would require a tech level of C 
and a law level of at most 2, plus a pop code of at least 4 in 
order to _support_ _a_ _gun_ _shop?_"

> My usual solution is to allow the players to buy the cool 
> toys at a markup on a world with a low enough law level and
> a high enough population to support an import shop. 

"...a high enough population to _support_ _an_ _import_ _shop?_"

> Alternately, on some high-tech, high-pop worlds with a big 
> starport, there may be a shop inside the extrality line 
> where firearms are less strictly controlled.

How do you decide this?

Keith, could you expand on these points?  I don't recall
Pop, Tech, or Port levels being tied directly to the types of
_shops_ available on worlds.

Are you using house rules for this?  Would you tell us more
about them?

Eris

From penguin_boy at mindspring.com  Sun Nov  4 10:20:08 2007
From: penguin_boy at mindspring.com (Douglas Berry)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:20:08 -0800
Subject: [TML] Interesting books from the past
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.1.20071031102137.019c3ea8@gte.net>
References: <000501c81bc7$d3ff1290$6d354b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
	<7.0.1.0.1.20071031102137.019c3ea8@gte.net>
Message-ID: <E1Iojbj-00014P-HN@elasmtp-banded.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

At 07:33 AM 10/31/2007, Robert Kevin Walsh raced into the room, and 
announced the following:
>its amazing what folks squirrel away and forget about, it or just
>gets lost in the shuffle

<snip>

Amazing stuff! Thank you so much for preserving this bit of history.

>amazingly there werent any scantily clad native girls

Perhaps his hands were otherwise occupied when around said girls?

ObTrav: I've always found that old photographs and books are great 
sources for adventure nuggets. Additionally, an old image or book 
in-game can be an important clue or a springboard to an adventure.

Example: The crew of the Free Trader Estimated Prophet are doing a 
routine post-landing cleaning, when they discover a commercial 
holocube left in the passenger common area. Examining the contents 
(to try to discover  ownership) they find typical tourist snapshots - 
except for three images taken at the orbital starport that show an 
anomaly. In these shots is an old enemy, a man the crew thought long dead.


--

Douglas Berry penguin_boy at mindspring.com
http://gridlore.livejournal.com/

TML Great Old One, The Keeper of Penguins
Plague of the Traveller Riders of the Apocalypse
Chant "Gridlore" thrice to summon





From eclipse at urbin.net  Sun Nov  4 11:14:22 2007
From: eclipse at urbin.net (Mark Urbin)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:14:22 -0500
Subject: [TML] Interesting books from the past
In-Reply-To: <E1Iojbj-00014P-HN@elasmtp-banded.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
References: <000501c81bc7$d3ff1290$6d354b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
	<7.0.1.0.1.20071031102137.019c3ea8@gte.net>
	<E1Iojbj-00014P-HN@elasmtp-banded.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <472e0c01.08102c0a.37bc.06d3@mx.google.com>

At 12:20 PM 11/4/2007, Douglas Berry wrote:
>At 07:33 AM 10/31/2007, Robert Kevin Walsh raced into the room, and
>announced the following:
> >its amazing what folks squirrel away and forget about, it or just
> >gets lost in the shuffle
>
><snip>
>
>Amazing stuff! Thank you so much for preserving this bit of history.

I found the close up shot of a young Chiang Kai-shek to be quite interesting.
A casual brush with history.

> >amazingly there werent any scantily clad native girls
>Perhaps his hands were otherwise occupied when around said girls?

He was a US Sailor, I figured that was pretty much a given. :-)


>ObTrav: I've always found that old photographs and books are great
>sources for adventure nuggets. Additionally, an old image or book
>in-game can be an important clue or a springboard to an adventure.
>
>Example: The crew of the Free Trader Estimated Prophet are doing a
>routine post-landing cleaning, when they discover a commercial
>holocube left in the passenger common area. Examining the contents
>(to try to discover  ownership) they find typical tourist snapshots -
>except for three images taken at the orbital starport that show an
>anomaly. In these shots is an old enemy, a man the crew thought long dead.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.urbin.net/EWW/
You are fighting for survival in your own sweet and gentle way.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 


From grantk70 at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 11:38:21 2007
From: grantk70 at yahoo.com (Keith Grant)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 10:38:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions - long
In-Reply-To: <472E00ED.9060101@bellsouth.net>
Message-ID: <351046.58504.qm@web56803.mail.re3.yahoo.com>

Warning, long post ahead.

--- Eris Reddoch <erisred at bellsouth.net> wrote:
<<snip>>
> 
> How do you decide this?
> 
> Keith, could you expand on these points?  I don't
> recall
> Pop, Tech, or Port levels being tied directly to the
> types of
> _shops_ available on worlds.
> 
> Are you using house rules for this?  Would you tell
> us more
> about them?
> 
> Eris

This is basically house rules stuff.

Tech level will affect only what goods are available
locally.  Where possible, shopkeepers will generally
prefer to stock locally made goods - its cheaper. 
Transport costs less if its locally produced, plus you
don't have to bother getting it cleared through
customs.

Now, there will always be some people who want goods
better than what can be made locally.  On worlds with
a large population, there will be enough of them to
support niche shops that bring in off-world imports
and sell them at a markup.  On a lower population
world, the customer base needed to make those shops
viable is less likely to be there.  On a world with a
population of only a few thousand people, how many of
them need high-tech military grade firearms?  How long
will those people's business pay a shopkeepers
expenses?  Not for very long.  Now, there will still
be enough demand that if someone did want a gauss
rifle, one shopkeep or another would be able to order
it in from offworld, if you don't mind waiting at
least three weeks and paying a large markup.  But no
shopkeeper is going to import and stock gauss rifles
if he's only going to sell one every other year.

Next, where the starport comes into it.  I see a
starport as being rather like an airport.  You've got
everything from the dinky little ones in small towns
with maybe two runways and no facilities that aren't
needed for maintaining the very limited number of
aircraft that come there.  Large, A class starports on
high pop worlds, however, are more than that.  They
have all the stuff listed in the rulebooks, of course,
but think of the other things that would logically be
built there.  Hotels to stay in while you wait for
your connecting flight.  Gift shops, where businessmen
buy useless souvenirs for the wife and kids.  Duty
free shops - the first stores you run into on the far
side of the extrality line.  Stores where, SPA regs
permitting, you can get all sorts of stuff that would
be illegal anywhere else on the planet.  Banned books,
alcohol, firearms, you name it, and as long as you
don't try to take it back through customs, you're all
set.


You asked what rules I'm using.  The answer is that
I'm not using hard rules.  When a player asks "can I
buy X here?"  The question I have to answer as a
referee is "Would someone selling X here be able to
turn a profit?"  When there's no profit, there's no
store.

YMMV,

Keith Grant

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
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From res053z0 at gte.net  Sun Nov  4 11:49:20 2007
From: res053z0 at gte.net (Robert Kevin Walsh)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:49:20 -0600
Subject: [TML] Interesting books from the past
In-Reply-To: <472e0c01.08102c0a.37bc.06d3@mx.google.com>
References: <000501c81bc7$d3ff1290$6d354b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
	<7.0.1.0.1.20071031102137.019c3ea8@gte.net>
	<E1Iojbj-00014P-HN@elasmtp-banded.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
	<472e0c01.08102c0a.37bc.06d3@mx.google.com>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.1.20071104124357.019d3270@gte.net>

somewhere in my friends dads house theres supposedly a second photo 
album, sadly it hasnt turned up, we also have no clue whats in it 
beyond more military photos, we didnt bother scanning the Operation 
crossroads book, it was a military publication and most of its 
already online anyways.

yeah, I forgot to mention that picture of Chang Kai-Shek, its kinda cool

I wish we could figure out where some of the pictures came from, 
especially the chinese and russian ones, they definately predate his 
enlisting, and some even predate the Canopus being on china station. 
a few of the pictures in the book are picture postcards, others we 
have no freaking clue.

oddball question, theres a picture of a  seaplane in the album, we 
cant figure out what it is, first thought was a Supermarine Walrus, 
but the lower hull isnt right, anybody have any other ideas?


From penguin_boy at mindspring.com  Sun Nov  4 12:10:15 2007
From: penguin_boy at mindspring.com (Douglas Berry)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 11:10:15 -0800
Subject: [TML] Y'all want plot hooks?
Message-ID: <E1IokxM-0002cQ-7s@elasmtp-galgo.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

http://tinyurl.com/26jydx

50 years ago, a luxury airliner vanished on the way to Hawaii. This 
story has it all, multiple suspects (from the engi9ne down to the 
demolitions expert who changed his will the day before boarding) to 
enduring mysteries to a treasure hunt.

For Traveller, switch it to whatever mode of transport you favor that 
can vanish without a trace.  Connectio0ns and motives for a search 
can be easily added to any setting.

--

Douglas "Penguin Boy" Berry - penguin_boy at mindspring.com
http://gridlore.livejournal.com/

"The penguins alone could not have saved us, but in
conjunction with the mist they seem to have done so."
- At the Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft 

From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 13:06:48 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:06:48 -0500
Subject: [TML] UCon, Ann Arbor MI
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C3539088.11046%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, LKW wrote:

> I need volunteers to come to my seminars, applaud after I speak, and buy me
> lunch. In return I'll hang out, sign autographs, and chat about Traveller.

I would if I could.  Unfortunately, I'm a poor working stiff.  :(


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 13:54:54 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:54:54 -0500
Subject: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C3539BCE.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Timothy Little wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 31, 2007 at 04:16:17AM -0400, Jerry W Barrington wrote:
>> But that measure will depend not merely on the position, but on the
>> trajectory of the test particle.  As such, it isn't really measuring
>> the curvature of space, but the effect on certain trajectories.
> 
> The curvature *is* the effect on trajectories (technically called
> geodesics).  In GR, given the Riemann tensor values over a volume of
> spacetime you can compute the gravitational effect on all possible
> trajectories within it - and vice versa.

In a philosophical sense, the curvature is the effect.  In a practical
sense, the effect is an infinite sheaf of differences, worse than just the
3-part tensor.  :)

Also, integrating the values over a volume is nice, but a point has
curvature regardless of the extended volume around.

>> Even reduced to a 3 part vector, you can't compare them like you can
>> scalars.  With scalars, you can clearly say that *this* value is
>> more than a set limit, and *that* value is less.
> 
> What I was showing was that the Riemann curvature tensor is a lot less
> scary in practice than it might look.  Also, that those 3 curvature
> numbers within the Riemann tensor are essentially *equivalent* to the
> tidal gradient, not just loosely related in some way.  If all you want
> to do is compare magnitudes, you can obtain a physically meaningful
> scalar by computing the the square root of sum of squares of those 3
> components.
> 
> It may be worth noting here that for weak gravity (i.e. just about
> anywhere but near black holes), the curvature tensor components are
> insignificantly different from the gradient given by Newton's Law of
> Gravitation.  If dominated by a single massive body, the magnitude of
> curvature (i.e. gradient) is proportional to (mass / distance^3).

This is probably the most useful thing to do in game terms.

> An interesting part comes where there are multiple significant bodies.
> No two spherical masses can cancel out curvature at any point, but
> three can if they all happen to be at exactly the right distances in
> the right directions.  This would practically never happen by chance
> in a system, though.

This could complicate the game math.  Altho complete cancellation would be
unlikely, how do we find possible reductions?  Find a safe jump point that
is closer would always be useful!


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 13:55:00 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:55:00 -0500
Subject: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C3539BD4.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Garry Ward wrote:

> No where near the speed of light here. The only velocity involved is the
> velocity needed to be at the jump boundary line. Since the ship doesn't
> travel any distance (the two points in space/time over lap and the
> intervening space is never passed through), there is no significant fraction
> of C involved. Yes, when the ship transits into the new system, if it
> doesn't have the velocity to remain at the .0001 G line for the target star,
> it will start being pulled towards it. Likewise, if it has too much velocity
> it will pull away from it. It isn't stationary like a car parked in the
> drive. Zero Relative is the term I use, implying that there is no change in
> distance from specific objects (like the primary) though the ship may still
> be following it orbital trajectory around it.

This is hard to explain well without drawing spacetime charts to show you.
But the thing is that the space and time measuring axes tip as you go
faster.  What this means, is that having only a .001 dilation effect from
speed away from the target system will make a 1 parsec jump take you 1 day
into the past!  If you can reverse your vector and jump back within 2 days,
you get back to your start before you left.  Sure, *you* want to use the
drive just for fast interstellar travel.  But that is a necessary result of
relativity, and somebody will exploit it.


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 13:55:04 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:55:04 -0500
Subject: [TML] Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C3539BD8.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au> wrote:

> Friday rocks!  Love the girl in cut-off jeans shorts on the cover, in an
> orbital facility.
> It visually invokes this is near-future.

Are you saying cut-off jean shorts will go away in the future?  How sad.  :(



On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Steve Burchett wrote:

> Stranger in a Strange Land, though, is the best of the bunch. Have you read
> I Will Fear No Evil? Strange, but good. And Glory Road! The only "fantasy" I
> think he wrote. Excellent!

No, but I'll keep them in mind.


From garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net  Sun Nov  4 15:21:46 2007
From: garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net (Garry Ward)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 17:21:46 -0500
Subject: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters
References: <C3539BD4.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <000701c81f31$1b791dc0$d02d4b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jerry W Barrington" <jursamaj at yahoo.com>
To: <tml at travellercentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters


> On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Garry Ward wrote:
>
>> No where near the speed of light here. The only velocity involved is the
>> velocity needed to be at the jump boundary line. Since the ship doesn't
>> travel any distance (the two points in space/time over lap and the
>> intervening space is never passed through), there is no significant 
>> fraction
>> of C involved. Yes, when the ship transits into the new system, if it
>> doesn't have the velocity to remain at the .0001 G line for the target 
>> star,
>> it will start being pulled towards it. Likewise, if it has too much 
>> velocity
>> it will pull away from it. It isn't stationary like a car parked in the
>> drive. Zero Relative is the term I use, implying that there is no change 
>> in
>> distance from specific objects (like the primary) though the ship may 
>> still
>> be following it orbital trajectory around it.
>
> This is hard to explain well without drawing spacetime charts to show you.
> But the thing is that the space and time measuring axes tip as you go
> faster.  What this means, is that having only a .001 dilation effect from
> speed away from the target system will make a 1 parsec jump take you 1 day
> into the past!  If you can reverse your vector and jump back within 2 
> days,
> you get back to your start before you left.  Sure, *you* want to use the
> drive just for fast interstellar travel.  But that is a necessary result 
> of
> relativity, and somebody will exploit it.
>
Ah, huh?

No, jump to another system, even if you then jump back, you will arrive a 
bit (perhaps nano seconds) later, not earlier.

Yeah, I've seen some of those spacetime charts and how they prove you can't 
get there from here in less than decades.

They remind me of the graphics the ancient greek mathematicians used to 
prove that the distance between you and any object could always be cut in 
half, so you really, really couldn not pick up that cup and the arrow would 
never, ever reach you.

Escher also was able to draw some interesting things.

Jump may reposition you in relationship to specific other objects in the 
universe, but to go back in time, you have to reposition all the other 
objects in the universe so they are back into the relationship they were in 
at that pont in time.

Garry
> _______________________________________________
> TML mailing list
> TML at travellercentral.com
> http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml
> 



From shadow at shadowgard.com  Sun Nov  4 16:40:27 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:40:27 -0800
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions - long
In-Reply-To: <351046.58504.qm@web56803.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
References: <472E00ED.9060101@bellsouth.net>,
	<351046.58504.qm@web56803.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <472DE7EB.1173.46D963@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 4 Nov 2007 at 10:38, Keith Grant wrote:

> Tech level will affect only what goods are available
> locally.  Where possible, shopkeepers will generally
> prefer to stock locally made goods - its cheaper. 
> Transport costs less if its locally produced, plus you
> don't have to bother getting it cleared through
> customs.

Keep in mind that inside the Imperium *in general* customs are more 
apt to be like the fruit insprectors at the California border than 
like at an international border.

But that's just an "average". Since Imperial law is so loose and the 
planets have a lot more autonmy than US states (or EU member nations) 
have, it could be as bad as at one of the old Soviet border 
checkpoints.

A lot depends on law level and government type.

BTW, someone the other day was talking about having two separate law 
levels to justify the "cops" being able to way out-gun the PCs.

This doesn't make a lot of sense, since just about *everywhere* in 
the real world what police and other government types are allowed to 
carry as weapons is usually not regulated much if at all.

Law level based weapon restrictions are on what *private citizens* 
can carry. Not on what the local police have.

> You asked what rules I'm using.  The answer is that
> I'm not using hard rules.  When a player asks "can I
> buy X here?"  The question I have to answer as a
> referee is "Would someone selling X here be able to
> turn a profit?"  When there's no profit, there's no
> store.

Not true.

If there isn't enough profit, there won't be a store for long. But 
there are often optimists who think they can make a profit at 
something. 

They'll lose money and eventually go out of business. But they can 
hang on for suprisingly long times.

So that means that unprofitable businesses are rare, and if present 
are either new and not bad or old and obviously not doing well.


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au  Sun Nov  4 17:07:28 2007
From: david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au (david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 11:07:28 +1100
Subject: [TML] Prototype [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]
In-Reply-To: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <OFDC693B69.3F20FE93-ONCA25738A.0000232F-CA25738A.0000AF0E@centrelink.gov.au>

Dear Folks -

Leslie wrote:
>>> consider instead how modern railroad gauge can
>>> be traced back to the width of the ruts in Roman
>>> roads, a couple of thousand years ago.
>>
>>This is a myth.
>>
>> Originally there was no standard rail gauge.
[snip]
>But I used that story as part of the backstory for my
>current homebrew universe!

Leslie, simple solution is that this goes much farther back than mere 
Terran history. It goes back to the wheel-ruts in _Vilani_ roads, back 
when the First Imperium limited tech development on their subordinate 
planets so much that carts were pulled by good old-fashioned poni-power.

;-)  ;-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.pcug.org.au/~davidjw               davidjw ..at.. pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
**********************************************************************
IMPORTANT:  This e-mail is intended for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential, commercially valuable or subject to legal or parliamentary privilege.  If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that any review, re-transmission, disclosure, use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited by several Commonwealth Acts of Parliament.  If you have received this communication in error please notify the sender immediately and delete all copies of this transmission together with any attachments.
**********************************************************************


From david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au  Sun Nov  4 17:54:00 2007
From: david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au (david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 11:54:00 +1100
Subject: [TML] The Dirty Little Secret of the Tavrchedl' [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]
In-Reply-To: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <OF21EB9A29.90DE181D-ONCA25738A.000149B5-CA25738A.0004F19D@centrelink.gov.au>

Dear Folks -

Glenn mused:
>>From: Bruce Johnson <johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu>
>[deletion]
>>That said, the cop on the beat method is vastly more
>>labor intensive, and I don't know that it can easily be
>>brought back in the modern automobile-centered, largely
>>suburban US.
>
>Will the beat completely disappear when grav technology is
>commonplace?

Probably replaced by grav-belt-using sky-cops. See the brilliant "A Little 
Night Flying" short story and the _Vertigo_ novel by Bob "Slow-glass" 
Shaw.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.pcug.org.au/~davidjw               davidjw ..at.. pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
**********************************************************************
IMPORTANT:  This e-mail is intended for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential, commercially valuable or subject to legal or parliamentary privilege.  If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that any review, re-transmission, disclosure, use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited by several Commonwealth Acts of Parliament.  If you have received this communication in error please notify the sender immediately and delete all copies of this transmission together with any attachments.
**********************************************************************


From david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au  Sun Nov  4 18:19:09 2007
From: david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au (david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 12:19:09 +1100
Subject: [TML] The Dirty Little Secret of the Tavrchedl' [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]
In-Reply-To: <mailman.707.1193790393.527.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <OF15492DA1.D02C1823-ONCA25738A.00072707-CA25738A.00073EED@centrelink.gov.au>

Dear Folks -

Colin wrote:
>Grav belts might actually facilitate a return to beat cops. A police 
>officer with a grav belt could combine the advantages of walking a 
>beat with the quick response of a patrol car.

Gah! Colin beat me to it!

;-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.pcug.org.au/~davidjw               davidjw ..at.. pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
**********************************************************************
IMPORTANT:  This e-mail is intended for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential, commercially valuable or subject to legal or parliamentary privilege.  If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that any review, re-transmission, disclosure, use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited by several Commonwealth Acts of Parliament.  If you have received this communication in error please notify the sender immediately and delete all copies of this transmission together with any attachments.
**********************************************************************


From raikenclw at gmail.com  Sun Nov  4 18:22:21 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 20:22:21 -0500
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <20071104040220.GV27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <001901c81e6e$5374d2a0$fa5e77e0$@com.au>
	<472CB786.31891.F534443@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<20071104040220.GV27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50711041722r27013839ic905b1706c3cd2ab@mail.gmail.com>

On Nov 3, 2007 11:02 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> More complex objects would have internal heat flows making them more
> difficult to model, but the same general principles would apply.

Sounds like a standard piece of spacewalking equipment should be a
large umbrella.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From raikenclw at gmail.com  Sun Nov  4 18:50:51 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 20:50:51 -0500
Subject: [TML] Um... Okay...
In-Reply-To: <002801c81efd$61579cb0$d7364b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
References: <250197.1885.qm@web33502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<002801c81efd$61579cb0$d7364b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50711041750o73cb9db7n424474fc3d03fe80@mail.gmail.com>

> > Spot the player character.
> >
> > http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=8028029&postcount=36733
> >
> Better question is how did they get away justifying that to the GM?

Me: "So the two of you are going to be walking down the street in
pumps and tutus?  But you, Bill, want to carry along your M-16, just
in case of trouble?"

Bill: "Sure.  We're registered mercs.  We're licensed."

Me: "Ohhhhkaaaaay.  You do realize that your license only applies to
using your weapons in performance of your contracted duty?"

Sue: "Yep.  We're not on duty.  Obviously.  But Bill here will only
shoot if he sees one of the enemy or something."

Me: "Riiiight.  Okay, then.  Are you walking or taking the bus?"

Bill: "I think we'll walk.  It's only . . . ."

As Bill drones on, I beginning contemplating how many gangers I should
have heckle them about their attire, once they're out of easy
turn-around distance.  And how well I should let said gangers be armed
and armored.  And what sort of response time I should give to the
local constabulary.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From raikenclw at gmail.com  Sun Nov  4 19:23:31 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 21:23:31 -0500
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions - long
In-Reply-To: <472DE7EB.1173.46D963@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <472E00ED.9060101@bellsouth.net>
	<351046.58504.qm@web56803.mail.re3.yahoo.com>
	<472DE7EB.1173.46D963@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50711041823o390dc114gdafac8a25339891c@mail.gmail.com>

On Nov 4, 2007 6:40 PM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> On 4 Nov 2007 at 10:38, Keith Grant wrote:
> > When a player asks "can I
> > buy X here?"  The question I have to answer as a
> > referee is "Would someone selling X here be able to
> > turn a profit?"  When there's no profit, there's no
> > store.
>
> Not true.
>
> If there isn't enough profit, there won't be a store for long. But
> there are often optimists who think they can make a profit at
> something.
>
> They'll lose money and eventually go out of business. But they can
> hang on for suprisingly long times.
>
> So that means that unprofitable businesses are rare, and if present
> are either new and not bad or old and obviously not doing well.

Fred's Gatlinburg Autoparts: Owned and still run by an ex-mayor of the
town, who's well into his seventies now and severely crippled by
arthritis.  His prices are higher than the Autozone discount store
down in Pigeon Forge.  But he's known just about every mechanic in the
area since they were in diapers.  Most of them will pay a little more
for a part (and pass the cost on to their mostly-tourist customers . .
.), just to give him their business.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au  Sun Nov  4 19:31:19 2007
From: david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au (david.d.jaques-watson at centrelink.gov.au)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 13:31:19 +1100
Subject: [TML] First Session CT Questions [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <OFB9857D70.2D2F848C-ONCA25738A.00089755-CA25738A.000DDAB3@centrelink.gov.au>

Dear Folks -

Ewan replied to Doyle:
>"The Effects of Tactics Skill:

If this gets out of hand, an addition suggested by the authors is to 
restrict the maximum Tactics points per use to the highest Leadership 
level of the party.

>> - Do you allow PCs to purchase military grade weapons and armor during
>> character generation? Or is this why the `gun' and
>> `blade' mustering out benefits are so important?
>
>If they can afford it then I let them have it.

Here's one answer from the authors:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Are player characters allowed to choose any weapon (like an FGMP-15) when 
they receive "weapon" as a mustering out benefit? - R. I.

Although not explicitly stated in the rules, the answer is hinted at on 
page 15 of the Players' Manual, under "Homeworld Limitations" as applied 
to weapon skills.

Player characters can choose any weapon that is not greater than their 
character's homeworld tech code, and is also within the homeworld's law 
code. Rogues, Pirates, and Law Enforcers can select weapons that are one 
law code lower than their homeworld. Nobles, who are not subject to any 
homeworld restriction, can select any weapon.

Remember that using a weapon without skill increases task difficulty by 
one level (see the Referee's Manual, page 15, under "Notes About DMs"). 
With the advent of the included skills (handgun, rifleman, and so on), 
player characters in MegaTraveller no longer have an automatic skill 
level-0 in all weapons. So even if you get an FGMP-15, you probably can't 
hit the broad side of a parked air/raft with it.

This easily takes care of many opportunities to select an FGMP-15. - Joe 
D. Fugate Sr.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This answer comes from "Traveller Q&A", Travellers' Digest issue 12, 
Digest Group Publications, Boise, ID, USA, 1988, pp 42-43.

It's available on my site:
==> Tavonni Repair Bays
==> Traveller Q&A
==> Traveller Q&A: Official Answers To Your Questions (Digest 12)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
David "Hyphen" Jaques-Watson ..at.. Beowulf Down (Tavonni/Vilis/SM 1520)
http://www.pcug.org.au/~davidjw               davidjw ..at.. pcug.org.au
"I file things in historical order, with a hashing algorithm of gravity"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REQ'D DISCLAIMER - material & opinions contained within are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent, in whole or in part, the
position of Centrelink or any other Commonwealth Government agency.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
**********************************************************************
IMPORTANT:  This e-mail is intended for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential, commercially valuable or subject to legal or parliamentary privilege.  If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that any review, re-transmission, disclosure, use or dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited by several Commonwealth Acts of Parliament.  If you have received this communication in error please notify the sender immediately and delete all copies of this transmission together with any attachments.
**********************************************************************


From booksfleamarket at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 20:13:27 2007
From: booksfleamarket at yahoo.com (juliane murphy)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 19:13:27 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

   Hi gang,
     My wife ran across this while surfing the net and pointed it out to me. Not exactly the ultra-cool holographic computer from "Minority Report", but pretty darned close for TL 8ish Terra :) 
     
     Link listed below.
     When you get to the place, click view video (listed in yellow-green beneath the photo of the thing)
     Best,
    -Ken-.
   
  http://s7d2.scene7.com/s7ondemand/brochure/flash_brochure.jsp?company=NeimanMarcus&sku=NMChristmasBook&config=NMChristmasBook&zoomwidth=1000&zoomheight=690&ww=1024&wh=768

 __________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 

From raikenclw at gmail.com  Sun Nov  4 20:38:00 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 22:38:00 -0500
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com>

On Nov 4, 2007 10:13 PM, juliane murphy <booksfleamarket at yahoo.com> wrote:
>     When you get to the place, click view video (listed in yellow-green beneath the photo of the thing)

Eh . . . Ken?  That link sent me to the (apparently enormous) Neiman
Marcus 100th Anniversary Christmas catelog.  Now, while the models
were fetchingly clad (Ireally liked the 1990's "business" suit . . .
), I didn't see anything about a computer.  So I put "computer" into
their search box . . . and it spit out a crystal-encrusted wireless
mouse.

Somehow, I don't think this is what you're talking about . . . :-)


-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Nov  4 21:02:40 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 15:02:40 +1100
Subject: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters
In-Reply-To: <C3539BCE.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<C3539BCE.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20071105040240.GW27107@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 03:54:54PM -0500, Jerry W Barrington wrote:
> This could complicate the game math.  Altho complete cancellation
> would be unlikely, how do we find possible reductions?  Find a safe
> jump point that is closer would always be useful!

Non-negligible reductions in jump limit wouldn't happen frequently.

The best-case cancellation from another major body is where the other
body has tidal gradient at right angles to the original body, with
relative strength 2/3.  This reduces the gradient strength by 25%,
which corresponds to a 9% reduction in jump limit distance, which in
turn implies less than 5% reduction in travel time to the jump limit.

Hence to within a few percent, almost all cases of interactions of
gravitating bodies could be simply ignored.


- Tim

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Nov  4 21:30:25 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 15:30:25 +1100
Subject: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters
In-Reply-To: <000701c81f31$1b791dc0$d02d4b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
References: <C3539BD4.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
	<000701c81f31$1b791dc0$d02d4b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
Message-ID: <20071105043025.GX27107@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 05:21:46PM -0500, Garry Ward wrote:
> From: "Jerry W Barrington" <jursamaj at yahoo.com>
> > If you can reverse your vector and jump back within 2 days, you
> > get back to your start before you left.  Sure, *you* want to use
> > the drive just for fast interstellar travel.  But that is a
> > necessary result of relativity, and somebody will exploit it.
>
> Ah, huh?

The short explanation: time is not an absolute.

For starships moving at different velocities, the criteria for whether
two distant events are simultaneous will differ.  These two events are
"went into jump" and "came out of jump".  The amount of variation in
the times of these events is up to one year per light-year (more than
3 years per parsec), depending upon speed.

The only way to avoid this problem is to define the operation of jump
in terms of some external reference frame.  It is probably not a
solution to say that the reference frame is fixed by the origin and/or
destination stars, since stars also have different velocities.

One potential solution could involve some property of the galaxy (or
even universe) as a whole defining the reference frame of jump.  This
could enable retaining both relativity and FTL in the setting without
time travel.


- Tim

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Nov  4 21:43:30 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 15:43:30 +1100
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <5aca9be50711041722r27013839ic905b1706c3cd2ab@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001901c81e6e$5374d2a0$fa5e77e0$@com.au>
	<472CB786.31891.F534443@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<20071104040220.GV27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<5aca9be50711041722r27013839ic905b1706c3cd2ab@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071105044330.GY27107@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 08:22:21PM -0500, Richard Aiken wrote:
> Sounds like a standard piece of spacewalking equipment should be a
> large umbrella.

Then you have the problem of whether the umbrella itself heats up or
cools down.  Whichever it does, it will do it quite fast.

Also, things in shade will cool by radiating heat until the amount
they radiate is balanced by the amount they receive from other nearby
radiating objects.  Having an umbrella at 200 C shading something that
therefore cools to -100 C isn't a much better sitation.  :-)


One positive point I didn't take into account previously that in low
Earth orbit, the amount of cooling is limited by the warm, radiating
planet taking up half the sky.  -50 C is a more likely minimum.


- Tim

From raikenclw at gmail.com  Sun Nov  4 21:51:56 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 23:51:56 -0500
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <20071105044330.GY27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <001901c81e6e$5374d2a0$fa5e77e0$@com.au>
	<472CB786.31891.F534443@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<20071104040220.GV27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<5aca9be50711041722r27013839ic905b1706c3cd2ab@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071105044330.GY27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50711042051u106b3f8eh9f868d54e93c12f9@mail.gmail.com>

On Nov 4, 2007 11:43 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> Also, things in shade will cool by radiating heat until the amount
> they radiate is balanced by the amount they receive from other nearby
> radiating objects.  Having an umbrella at 200 C shading something that
> therefore cools to -[50] C isn't a much better sitation.  :-)

An umbrella made of smoked glass?  Maybe double-walled, with a coolant
in between?  You only cool it enough that the radiated heat keeps the
covered item at a reasonable working temp.  Essentially a medieval
mantlet sheild, except the beseiged castle is the Sun . . . :-)

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From kellys at efn.org  Sun Nov  4 22:26:59 2007
From: kellys at efn.org (Kelly St.Clair)
Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:26:59 -0800
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org>

You want the "Online Only Media Wall", page 107 (starting at $100k).

Still trying to get my browser to play the video, though.


--------------
Kelly St.Clair     Official sponsor of the Galactic Frungy League
kellys at efn.org             "FRUNGY:  The Sport of KINGS!"


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 22:31:26 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:31:26 -0500
Subject: [TML] Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C35414DE.1105A%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Richard Aiken wrote:

> Maybe they were worried about plagarism
> charges.

Hollywood?  Worry about plagiarism charges?

HA HA HA HA!!!

Seriously, I've never even heard of this movie.

Wait, from the IMDB synopsis:  "The Stranger... steals and destroys all the
cell phones."

The place is that middle-of-nowhere, but it has 1 or more cell towers.  And
nobody makes a single phone call for days, and the phone company doesn't
think anything is wrong???  Same for the lack of power use.  People would
definitely be arriving from outside.

Yeah, I can say now that I won't be bothering with this one...  :)
[Never mind that I'm not much into vampire movies these days.  It really has
been done to death.]


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 22:31:52 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:31:52 -0500
Subject: [TML] Prototype
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C35414F8.1105A%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Bruce Johnson wrote:

> On Oct 30, 2007, at 6:53 PM, <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au>
> <Traveller at dhimaging.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> Whatever you wish to use in your Traveller universe is between you
>> and your
>> God.  That's fine.  But I like to apply a grain of salt of reality
>> to the
>> game and make it a richer, more realistic setting.  Things change.
>> Period.
>> That's not just a game, it's life.  That's Human Nature.
> 
> But many of these people aren't Human, as we know it. The Vilani
> spent a huge part of their prehistory as slaves for a godlike alien
> being, who then went to war with other GAB's which wiped most of them
> out.
> 
> They then spent a sizeable chunk of their early recorded history
> building up a civilization that was then squashed like bugs by GAB
> technology. They "originated" on a world where their food will *kill*
> them if they don't prepare it properly. ALL their food.
> 
> This will make Human Nature far less of the universal trait you think
> it is.

I think to a large degree it's not about "human nature", but the nature of
life in general.

The only constant is change.

If the Vilani had been that static, some neighbor would not have been.  And
that neighbor would have taken over the empire.  It's simply absurd to think
that the Vilani could stagnate, yet remain the big man on the block.


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 22:33:25 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:33:25 -0500
Subject: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C3541555.1105A%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Timothy Little wrote:

> It changes the patterns of space travel very markedly.  Pretty much
> any system in the galaxy becomes available for travel at much the same
> cost as the system next door.  Trade between systems with many people
> and resources outside the jump limit becomes vastly cheaper and faster
> than those buried deep within.  X-boat equivalents can quickly
> transmit information thousands of parsecs.

This just goes to show you that the tech really determines a lot about the
game world.

I've seen several variants where the jump is almost "free", but can only
happen at specific points.  So you would jump in on *this* side of the
system, then to continue on, have to work around to *that* side.

> If you're interested in star data though, there are a few online
> catalogs.

The trouble with all star catalogs is that by the time you get out to a
decently large size, the error bars on the distance are enormous, and the
dim stars are vastly under-represented.  :(  That's why I've pretty well
given up on using real star maps for a game.  I just want to get the spatial
& type distributions decent and do it all randomly.


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Nov  4 22:33:38 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:33:38 -0500
Subject: [TML] Amber Zone: Wet Goods, Dry Goods
In-Reply-To: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C3541562.1105A%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Leonard Erickson wrote:

> On 31 Oct 2007 at 6:19, Steve Burchett wrote:
> 
>> Stranger in a Strange Land, though, is the best of the bunch.
> 
> Which version?

Hmm.  Mine says copyright 61, 1st ed 61, later eds 68 and 87.  I bought it
new in the past few months.  Do I assume it's the uncut?  How can I tell?



On 11/3/07 11:01 PM, Steve Burchett wrote:

> The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is also one of my favorites. It helped me form
> many of my basic beliefs that I hold to unto today. *sigh* So sad that he is
> gone. *bows head mournfully*

Since I've started reading him, I've come across a lot of philosophy that's
very good.  While I wouldn't say it has drastically altered my worldview, it
certainly adds grist to the mill.  :)


From ewan at quibell.org.uk  Mon Nov  5 02:17:22 2007
From: ewan at quibell.org.uk (Ewan Quibell)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:17:22 +0000
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>	<317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com>
	<6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org>
Message-ID: <472EDFA2.2040800@quibell.org.uk>

Kelly St.Clair wrote:
> You want the "Online Only Media Wall", page 107 (starting at $100k).
> 
> Still trying to get my browser to play the video, though.

They are the people who developed the idea, and now microsoft is getting 
into the act. Google "Microsoft Surface".

Best Regards

Ewan
-- 
  ewan at quibell.org.uk

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
  At the going down of the sun and in the morning
  We will remember them.
			Laurence Binyon

  My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license


From tim at little-possums.net  Mon Nov  5 02:33:05 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 20:33:05 +1100
Subject: [TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk
In-Reply-To: <5aca9be50711042051u106b3f8eh9f868d54e93c12f9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001901c81e6e$5374d2a0$fa5e77e0$@com.au>
	<472CB786.31891.F534443@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<20071104040220.GV27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<5aca9be50711041722r27013839ic905b1706c3cd2ab@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071105044330.GY27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<5aca9be50711042051u106b3f8eh9f868d54e93c12f9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071105093305.GZ27107@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 11:51:56PM -0500, Richard Aiken wrote:
> An umbrella made of smoked glass?  Maybe double-walled, with a
> coolant in between?  You only cool it enough that the radiated heat
> keeps the covered item at a reasonable working temp.  Essentially a
> medieval mantlet sheild, except the beseiged castle is the Sun
> . . . :-)

Actually on further thought, having a hot umbrella shading some more
temperature-sensitive item may be a good thing.  If the hot umbrella
floods one half of the item's "sky" with its thermal radiation and the
other half is colder, then the item should maintain a reasonable
temperature balance in between.


There's another passive thermal trick that may be possible: Design the
surface composition so that it has high emissivity in wavelengths
about half an octave above the spectrum peak for its design
temperature, and very low in longer wavelengths.  The visible spectrum
emissivity would need to be tailored for the expected solar flux, but
probably fairly low.

This would make it appear visually white, meaning that it would not
absorb much sunlight.  If it was hotter than its design temperature it
would radiate rapidly, hopefully cooling it down.  If cooler, it would
radiate much slower and thus be more likely to warm up.  Hence it
would passively maintain a more consistent temperature in varying
amounts of incident radiation.

More advanced surfaces could do even better.  For example, a
thermochromic material that goes dark in visible light and reflective
in IR below a certain temperature, and the reverse when hot.  The
colour-changing T-shirts that were all the rage in the 80s serve as a
primitive example in visible light.


- Tim

From tim.rattray at gmail.com  Mon Nov  5 04:51:39 2007
From: tim.rattray at gmail.com (Tim Rattray)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 22:51:39 +1100
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <472EDFA2.2040800@quibell.org.uk>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com>
	<6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org>
	<472EDFA2.2040800@quibell.org.uk>
Message-ID: <483f95360711050351i5e9b65b0yb93bf69bb68919e1@mail.gmail.com>

Ahh, MS-Surface is like the boss's computer in "The Island" a movie with
Ewan MacGregor and Scarlett Johansson (sigh).  It was so cool!  It's worth
watching the movie just for the computer scene.  The rest of it hung
together rather well I thought, too.  No, it wasn't just because most scenes
has Scarlett walking/running/sitting/talking/breathing, although that didn't
hurt the movie one bit.

Tim

From Traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Mon Nov  5 06:11:52 2007
From: Traveller at dhimaging.com.au (Traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 00:11:52 +1100
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <483f95360711050351i5e9b65b0yb93bf69bb68919e1@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>	<317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com>	<6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org>	<472EDFA2.2040800@quibell.org.uk>
	<483f95360711050351i5e9b65b0yb93bf69bb68919e1@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00e501c81fad$7025fc40$5071f4c0$@com.au>

-----Original Message-----
From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
[mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of Tim Rattray

Ahh, MS-Surface is like the boss's computer in "The Island" a movie with
Ewan MacGregor and Scarlett Johansson (sigh).  It was so cool!  It's worth
watching the movie just for the computer scene.  The rest of it hung
together rather well I thought, too.  No, it wasn't just because most scenes
has Scarlett walking/running/sitting/talking/breathing, although that didn't
hurt the movie one bit.

Tim
===============================================
[joel]

Tim, have you seen Scarlett in "The Girl with the Perl Earring"?
She is simply stunning in that role, and she plays a medieval maid with no
makeup!

Surface looks like very interesting technology.  I imagine a generation or
two down the road, almost every plastic or glass 'surface' will be
"Surface"-ready.  Imagine walking onto a computer lab, plugging your PDA
into a docking station, and the very walls light up.  You slip on the
Control Rings, and you start grabbing air as you sort through databases and
photo libraries, working on your History report that's due tomorrow...

-Joel



From quakers_united at yahoo.com.au  Mon Nov  5 06:13:37 2007
From: quakers_united at yahoo.com.au (James Ramsay)
Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:13:37 +1100
Subject: [TML] Prototype
In-Reply-To: <C35414F8.1105A%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
References: <C35414F8.1105A%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <472F1701.7080203@yahoo.com.au>

Jerry W Barrington wrote:
> If the Vilani had been that static, some neighbor would not have been.  And
> that neighbor would have taken over the empire.  It's simply absurd to think
> that the Vilani could stagnate, yet remain the big man on the block.
>   

They didn't. We kicked their asses!

P.S. The Traveller proposition on tech is that Solomani development is 
super extraordinary. Thus the Viliani aren't technological 
conservatives, they are just conservative compared to Solomani.

-- 
the_raptor
"As for sniping... Dude, I was a freaking sniper!
 It's what I do!" - Doug Berry


From quakers_united at yahoo.com.au  Mon Nov  5 06:29:01 2007
From: quakers_united at yahoo.com.au (James Ramsay)
Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:29:01 +1100
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <00e501c81fad$7025fc40$5071f4c0$@com.au>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>	<317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com>	<6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org>	<472EDFA2.2040800@quibell.org.uk>	<483f95360711050351i5e9b65b0yb93bf69bb68919e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<00e501c81fad$7025fc40$5071f4c0$@com.au>
Message-ID: <472F1A9D.9030006@yahoo.com.au>

Traveller at dhimaging.com.au wrote:
> Surface looks like very interesting technology.  I imagine a generation or
> two down the road, almost every plastic or glass 'surface' will be
> "Surface"-ready.  Imagine walking onto a computer lab, plugging your PDA
> into a docking station, and the very walls light up.  You slip on the
> Control Rings, and you start grabbing air as you sort through databases and
> photo libraries, working on your History report that's due tomorrow...

And your arms get tired after ten minutes. I find people who expect 
modern white collar workers to do gross motor movements all day, to be 
absolutely hilarious. Same with Ton Cruise's computer from _Minority 
Report_, and _Lawn Mower Man_ versions of virtual reality. Not practical 
for anything but presentations and looking cool in movies.

Really, why would I want to make working on a computer harder? There is 
nothing I can't do with a keyboard, a mouse, and a big display. The only 
input device that will change computing will be neural interfaces.


-- 
the_raptor
"As for sniping... Dude, I was a freaking sniper!
 It's what I do!" - Doug Berry


From darvedd at gmail.com  Mon Nov  5 08:20:09 2007
From: darvedd at gmail.com (Michael Jenkins)
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 00:20:09 +0900
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <472F1A9D.9030006@yahoo.com.au>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com>
	<6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org>
	<472EDFA2.2040800@quibell.org.uk>
	<483f95360711050351i5e9b65b0yb93bf69bb68919e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<00e501c81fad$7025fc40$5071f4c0$@com.au>
	<472F1A9D.9030006@yahoo.com.au>
Message-ID: <1832b5750711050720i6c4b2ef6j48913c976de19f81@mail.gmail.com>

On 05/11/2007, James Ramsay <quakers_united at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> Traveller at dhimaging.com.au wrote:
> > Surface looks like very interesting technology.  I imagine a generation or
> > two down the road, almost every plastic or glass 'surface' will be
> > "Surface"-ready.  Imagine walking onto a computer lab, plugging your PDA
> > into a docking station, and the very walls light up.  You slip on the
> > Control Rings, and you start grabbing air as you sort through databases and
> > photo libraries, working on your History report that's due tomorrow...
>
> And your arms get tired after ten minutes. I find people who expect
> modern white collar workers to do gross motor movements all day, to be
> absolutely hilarious. Same with Ton Cruise's computer from _Minority
> Report_, and _Lawn Mower Man_ versions of virtual reality. Not practical
> for anything but presentations and looking cool in movies.
>
> Really, why would I want to make working on a computer harder? There is
> nothing I can't do with a keyboard, a mouse, and a big display. The only
> input device that will change computing will be neural interfaces.

Likewise for voice interface - can you imagine trying to work in a
crowded office where everyone's talking to their computer?

Noisy.

-- 
Regards,
Michael Jenkins
--
No person should call themselves free,
While they are enslaved by fear, or greed, or hate.
--

From jzeitlin at spamcop.net  Mon Nov  5 08:38:14 2007
From: jzeitlin at spamcop.net (Jeff Zeitlin)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:38:14 -0500
Subject: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters
In-Reply-To: <20071105043025.GX27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <C3539BD4.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
	<000701c81f31$1b791dc0$d02d4b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>
	<20071105043025.GX27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <rvcui31crfggpg4moi8g0gii7lqeonppu7@4ax.com>

On Mon, 5 Nov 2007 15:30:25 +1100, Timothy Little wrote:

>The only way to avoid this problem is to define the operation of jump
>in terms of some external reference frame.  It is probably not a
>solution to say that the reference frame is fixed by the origin and/or
>destination stars, since stars also have different velocities.

>One potential solution could involve some property of the galaxy (or
>even universe) as a whole defining the reference frame of jump.  This
>could enable retaining both relativity and FTL in the setting without
>time travel.

Ummm... No.  This is specifically giving up relativity; the whole point
of relativity was that there IS no preferred frame of reference.  You're
trying to establish one here.

As Leonard is so fond of saying (or words to that effect), "Causality,
Relativity, FTL - pick any two.".

My problem with the entire relativity-causality-ftl problem has been
that C, the speed of light in vacuum, has been treated as privileged,
without an adequate explanation as to WHY.  If (assume FTL) I can
achieve effective speeds greater than C, why am I doing my observations
with plain old C-capped methods?  I'll get my information on the state
of the universe via the same FTL method, and if I do, all of the
paradoxes appear to fall away.

From jzeitlin at spamcop.net  Mon Nov  5 08:40:19 2007
From: jzeitlin at spamcop.net (Jeff Zeitlin)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:40:19 -0500
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <1832b5750711050720i6c4b2ef6j48913c976de19f81@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com>
	<6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org>
	<472EDFA2.2040800@quibell.org.uk>
	<483f95360711050351i5e9b65b0yb93bf69bb68919e1@mail.gmail.com>
	<00e501c81fad$7025fc40$5071f4c0$@com.au>
	<472F1A9D.9030006@yahoo.com.au>
	<1832b5750711050720i6c4b2ef6j48913c976de19f81@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <t7eui31ki4mibmbbfbmu00nd60kusj6mf8@4ax.com>

On Tue, 6 Nov 2007 00:20:09 +0900, Michael Jenkins wrote:

>Likewise for voice interface - can you imagine trying to work in a
>crowded office where everyone's talking to their computer?

>Noisy.

Or worse, in a cubical farm, someone working on a system that's being
(temporarily?) recalcitrant, and loses his temper and screams, loud
enough for the whole farm (and therefore all of the computers) to hear:
"NO, GODDAMMIT, DELETE THAT!".

From garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net  Mon Nov  5 10:20:54 2007
From: garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net (Garry Ward)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 12:20:54 -0500
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com><317073.55594.qm@web42108.mail.mud.yahoo.com><5aca9be50711041938y72b504dfgc50864090846617d@mail.gmail.com><6.1.2.0.2.20071104212404.01b70770@pop.efn.org><472EDFA2.2040800@quibell.org.uk><483f95360711050351i5e9b65b0yb93bf69bb68919e1@mail.gmail.com><00e501c81fad$7025fc40$5071f4c0$@com.au><472F1A9D.9030006@yahoo.com.au><1832b5750711050720i6c4b2ef6j48913c976de19f81@mail.gmail.com>
	<t7eui31ki4mibmbbfbmu00nd60kusj6mf8@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <000e01c81fd0$3d24a710$29294b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Zeitlin" <jzeitlin at spamcop.net>
To: "The Traveller Mailing List" <tml at travellercentral.com>
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 10:40 AM
Subject: Re: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff


> On Tue, 6 Nov 2007 00:20:09 +0900, Michael Jenkins wrote:
>
>>Likewise for voice interface - can you imagine trying to work in a
>>crowded office where everyone's talking to their computer?
>
>>Noisy.
>
> Or worse, in a cubical farm, someone working on a system that's being
> (temporarily?) recalcitrant, and loses his temper and screams, loud
> enough for the whole farm (and therefore all of the computers) to hear:
> "NO, GODDAMMIT, DELETE THAT!".
And passwords.

If you interact with the computer by talking, how do you keep the password 
secret?

Of course, that then opens the whole issue of using voice recongnition 
instead of passwords, but what happens if you come to work with a head cold 
and you're sinsus are stuffed up and you're voice isn't recognizable to the 
computer?

Or you've had dental work and the anesthetic hasn't worn off and your lips 
and tongue aren't working right, so the computer refuses to acknowledge you 
as an authorized user.

Garry
> _______________________________________________
> TML mailing list
> TML at travellercentral.com
> http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml
> 



From ajackson at iii.com  Mon Nov  5 10:37:05 2007
From: ajackson at iii.com (Anthony Jackson)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:37:05 -0800
Subject: [TML] White Dwarfs, Black Holes & 100 Diameters
In-Reply-To: <rvcui31crfggpg4moi8g0gii7lqeonppu7@4ax.com>
References: <C3539BD4.1104D%jursamaj@yahoo.com>	<000701c81f31$1b791dc0$d02d4b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>	<20071105043025.GX27107@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<rvcui31crfggpg4moi8g0gii7lqeonppu7@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <472F54C1.1070602@iii.com>

Jeff Zeitlin wrote:

> Ummm... No.  This is specifically giving up relativity; the whole point
> of relativity was that there IS no preferred frame of reference.  You're
> trying to establish one here.

Um. Not totally. There is nothing preventing you from measuring the 
average speed of a system and declaring that to be a speed of 0. It 
won't have any special effects within relativity, but it's reasonably 
well defined.

> My problem with the entire relativity-causality-ftl problem has been
> that C, the speed of light in vacuum, has been treated as privileged,
> without an adequate explanation as to WHY.  If (assume FTL) I can
> achieve effective speeds greater than C, why am I doing my observations
> with plain old C-capped methods?  I'll get my information on the state
> of the universe via the same FTL method, and if I do, all of the
> paradoxes appear to fall away.

Because the point about C is that it appears to be the same velocity to 
all observers, regardless of reference frame.

From hemdian at trisen.com  Mon Nov  5 11:13:26 2007
From: hemdian at trisen.com (Peter L.S. Trevor)
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 18:13:26 +0000
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
Message-ID: <200711051813.lA5IDTEO006768@omr3.networksolutionsemail.com>

Tim Rattray wrote:
> Ahh, MS-Surface is like the boss's
> computer in "The Island" a movie with
> Ewan MacGregor and Scarlett
> Johansson (sigh).

What about the boss's table in TRON?

Regards PLST



From stuart at frew.net.nz  Mon Nov  5 11:29:14 2007
From: stuart at frew.net.nz (Stuart Frew)
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 07:29:14 +1300
Subject: [TML] Seemingly High Tech Computer Stuff
In-Reply-To: <472F1A9D.9030006@yahoo.com.au>
References: <mailman.4.1194148889.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<00e501c81fad$7025fc40$5071f4c0$@com.au>
	<472F1A9D.9030006@yahoo.com.au>
Message-ID: <200711060729.14800.stuart@frew.net.nz>

On Tuesday 06 November 2007 02:29:01 James Ramsay wrote:
> Traveller at dhimaging.com.au wrote:
> > Surface looks like very interesting technology.  I imagine a generation
> > or two down the road, almost every plastic or glass 'surface' will be
> > "Surface"-ready.  Imagine walking onto a computer lab, plugging your PDA
> > into a docking station, and the very walls light up.  You slip on the
> > Control Rings, and you start grabbing air as you sort through databases
> > and photo libraries, working on your History report that's due
> > tomorrow...
>
> And your arms get tired after ten minutes. I find people who expect
> modern white collar workers to do gross motor movements all day, to be
> absolutely hilarious. Same with Ton Cruise's computer from _Minority
> Report_, and _Lawn Mower Man_ versions of virtual reality. Not practical
> for anything but presentations and looking cool in movies.
>
> Really, why would I want to make working on a computer harder? There is
> nothing I can't do with a keyboard, a mouse, and a big display. The only
> input device that will change computing will be neural interfaces.

Its sort of happening in the home with the Wii, but that would be a night mare 
in the office.
Not just the physical work but the space it would take up.

I can see the office desk becoming touch sensitive, in areas, and being the 
active display.
However that's just effectively a fancy touch screen.

From tml at stempest.demon.co.uk  Mon Nov  5 11:55:24 2007
From: tml at stempest.demon.co.uk (Stephen Tempest)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:55:24 +0000
S